Geneva College in Beaver Falls claims title of college basketball's birthplace
BEAVER FALLS, Pa. (KDKA) -- With college basketball in full swing and NCAA tournaments just around the corner, you may be curious as to where all the college basketball madness began. Luckily, you don't have to look very far outside of Pittsburgh.
Geneva College in Beaver Falls was the site of the first-ever college basketball game that took place back in April of 1893. That game was played between a team of students and a team from the local YMCA.
Van Zanic, the chief athletics officer for Geneva College, is the unofficial sports historian of the school and he says the game that was played back then would be almost unrecognizable to us today.
"So it was a nine-on-nine competition, and only one person could go back and forth on the court," said Zanic. "So you had four offensive players and four defensive players. One person could roam the court. There was no dribbling. So you never dribbled the ball, you passed the ball and of course there were peach baskets. So someone had to physically go up and pull the ball out of the peach basket. So there wasn't a whole lot of scoring. Geneva posted a shutout that day, 3-0 was the final score."
Basketball was actually invented some two years prior to this game by Dr. James Naismith at Springfield College in Massachusetts, but it was a former student of Naismith's, Charles Bemies, who brought the game to Geneva and subsequently started a collegiate and national craze.
Currently, this year's men's basketball team is 17-2 and is looking to finish out the season strong. Head coach Jeff Santarsiero is not only proud of his current squad but proud of the legacy and tradition of basketball at Geneva.
"We've been working so hard to keep that tradition up," said Santarsiero. "And when we walk in the gym, it's on the floor, it's on the wall, so you really can't get away from it. It's a privilege. It's an honor to say that I coach where it all began."
The Golden Tornadoes' next home game is against Waynesburg University on Wednesday, Jan. 27. Geneva hopes to win, but hopefully with a score that is more than 3-0. For more information, click here.