Women's basketball has come a long ways. Today the sports pages are reporting that Pat Summitt, head women's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, won her 900th game last night. That is a record. I don't think any coach of either gender has come close to that.

But back in the days when I was a young sports writer for the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, girls played by their own set of rules. There were six players on each team. Three were forwards and three were guards. Nobody could cross the center line. On each end of the court, three guards tried to keep three forwards from scoring.

Girls' rules allowed only one dribble. It was bounce, pass, bounce, pass. The guards tried to get the ball across the center line to their own forwards. If they were fouled, they didn't even shoot their own free throws. One of their forwards did it for them.

Naturally is was a somewhat slow-moving game, but in those days it was not considered lady-like to exert one's self too much. So half of the 12 players were mostly standing around watching at any given moment. It was only slightly more effort than a game of h o r s e.

Needless to say, the girls didn't like it. They got tired of putting fans to sleep. So the rules were changed to allow young ladies play by boys' rules and acturally (gasp!) sweat.

Ask your grandma about that.
Howard