Archives Photograph Collection

Men's Gymnasium showing the first glass backboards

P0028064

The importance of this image lies in the fact that it shows the first glass backboards to be used on the IU campus. For many generations it had been believed that IU was the first university to utilize glass backboards. However, we now know that others used glass blackboards well before IU. See the following citations: (1) Page 1 of the January 4, 1917 edition of The Indiana Daily Student. There can be found an article regarding the December 9, 1916 basketball game between Rose Poly and Purdue (at Purdue). The article reads, in part: "Coach Mefford, of the Rose Poly team, claimed that the glass backboards in the Purdue gym handicapped his team..."; (2) "The Chicago Game” in the February 10, 1905 Purdue student newspaper, the Purdue Exponent, regarding the University of Chicago losing at Purdue: https://exponent.lib.purdue.edu/?a=d&d=PE19050210-01.2.24&srpos=11&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-%22glass+banks%22-------1 The article reads, in part: "The greatest disadvantage under which the team [Chicago] labored, however, was the fact that the baskets had plate glass 'banks'. 'Eddie' Glover made throw after throw but could not find his favorite spot on the shining, glassy surface." This image scanned from page 38 of the 1917 Arbutus yearbook. This image also appears in the Indiana High School Basketball tournament program of March 16-17, 1917 held at Indiana University. It also appears on page 94 of the 1918 Arbutus yearbook.

not after 1917 March

Unknown

Unknown

Men's Gymnasium (1917)

Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, School of (HPER)

Nurre Mirror Plate Glass Company, The

Basketball

Gymnasiums

Bloomington

Indiana

Buildings & Grounds