Jessica  Baxter

James Naismith invented the game of basketball at the YMCA, in Springfield. Basketball played a major role in the development of high school athletics, both men’s, and women’s, in the United States. The establishment of a women’s professional league paved the way for a future of women in sports. Institutions recognized women’s athletics as equal. With equal opportunities, society viewed female players as authentic athletes. Women’s sports grew and more female athletes competed on a national level. Both men’s and women’s basketball was not just a sport that people could play, it was something people could watch and talk about together. The entertainment value increased as the game grew more popular in gymnasiums and on television.

Anita Shreve was born in Springfield Massachusetts, the birthplace of basketball. In her novels, The Pilot’s Wife, and Strange Fits of Passion, the main characters endure physical and emotional abuse in their relationships that draws them to escape and begin their lives over. The key question Shreve poses is how well does one know another person or even herself. Shreve’s characters discover their hardship through love, marriage, consequences of deception, and betrayal.

Major Works Consulted:

Grandy, Paula. “ From Amazons to Glamazons: The Rise and Fall of North Carolina’s Women’s’ Basketball, 1920-1960,” The Journal of American History Vol. 87 No 1. Montpelier: Organization of American Historians, 2000.
Shreve, Anita. The Pilot’s Wife. Boston: Little Brown, 1999.
---. Strange Fits of Passion. New York: Harcourt, 1991
Steen, Sandra and Susan. Take it to the Hoops: 100 years of Women’s Basketball. Brookfield: 21st Century, 2003.