Movie: "Glory Road" -- Officials

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally posted by ChuckElias

I wasn't around at that time, so I can't give you a definitive answer about why they specifically banned dunking. But my guess is that it was already illegal, based on the BI rules. To dunk the ball, your hand is contact with the ball while the ball is in the cylinder. Banning the dunk simply made this application of the BI rule explicit.

Now maybe the rules committee thought it was necessary to make it explicit b/c of the proliferation of the "city game", I don't know. As I said, I'm just guessing.

JR or MTD would have a better perspective than mine, I'm sure.

Chuck, dunking was legal under all rulesets at that time. The NCAA banned it and the FED followed. The official reason given by the NCAA rulesmakers was they were worried about equipment damage- fixed rims in those days. The generally accepted theory was that the rule was specifically aimed at Alcindor and UCLA- similar to widening the key for Mikan and Chamberlain. They were concerned that UCLA and Alcindor would become too dominant, so they were looking for a way to supposedly equalize the playing field. You can't legislate ability out of the game though. Alcindor just came up with the sky hook and nobody really could touch him in his 3 year university career(freshman were ineligible at that time).