Teacher helped raise game's profile

Dubai Although women's basketball has not been as popular globally as, say, women's tennis, women actually started playing the sport much earlier than most of us realise.

In fact, women started playing the sport as early as 1892, or barely a year after basketball was invented by Canadian educator Dr James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, US.

A teacher named Senda Berenson is credited with pioneering women's basketball. Berenson was a teacher at Smith College, and it was shortly after she was hired that she paid Naismith a visit to learn more about the newly invented game.

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Berenson modified the rules of the game to put an emphasis on teamwork and cooperation and taught it in her classes. Shortly thereafter, she organised the first women's collegiate basketball game on March 21, 1893, when her freshmen and sophomore students at Smith College played against each other.

Her modified rules were first published in 1899. Two years later, Berenson became the editor of A.G. Spalding's first Women's Basketball Guide, which further helped spread her version of basketball for women.

It was in the 1970s, however, when interest in women's basketball began to significantly increase. In 1976, women's basketball was declared an official sport of the Olympic Games.

Women's basketball is now played all over the world, although the sport has seen a much more dramatic growth and has greater following in the US, where the world's premier basketball league for women is based - the Women's National Basketball Association or WNBA.