GRADUATION

Spring is a special time of year for many reasons. While the season signals new beginnings with fresh flowers, it’s also a time for endings, such as the end of the school year.

Preschoolers graduate to kindergarten. Elementary students graduate to middle school. Middle school students graduate to high school. High school students graduate and follow life’s trail to college or the working world.

Graduation is a joyous time to celebrate the milestone of academic achievement. It’s a time for family and friends to gather together to show how proud they are of what the graduates have accomplished.

The graduation ceremony is a rite of passage that creates lifelong memories. If you’ve ever attended a graduation ceremony or seen pictures of one, you’ve surely noticed that everyone seems to be wearing the same outfit.

And it’s not your normal everyday clothes, either. So what’s the deal with the robes and the funny hats?

Those funny hats are called “mortarboards” because they resemble a tool used by bricklayers to hold mortar. In some areas, they’re also called “square academic caps” or “Oxford caps.” The mortarboard consists of a flat, square board attached to a skullcap, with a tassel buttoned to the center. Scholars believe the mortarboard is based on the biretta, a similar hat worn by Roman Catholic clergy. The biretta was commonly worn in the 14th and 15th centuries by students and artists.

Mortarboards are paired with robes to form the traditional graduation outfit known as “cap and gown.” Formal or “dress” clothing, such as a suit, is usually worn beneath the gown because graduation ceremonies are considered special occasions worthy of formal dress.

The cap and gown combination can be traced back to the academic and clerical dress commonly worn at the medieval universities of Europe.

These early universities didn’t have buildings, so students would usually meet at churches. Since these churches were unheated, historians believe students wore long gowns and caps for warmth.

Some children are curious about the tassels that hang from mortarboards. In some cases, the color of the tassel matches school colors. At other times, special tassel colors are used to represent particular degrees, subject areas or achievements.

It has become a tradition at many schools for all graduates to wear the tassel on one side until receiving their diplomas. After the graduating class is announced, the students then switch the tassel to the other side. After switching their tassel, many graduates also toss their caps into the air to celebrate.

The hat-tossing tradition got started in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1912. That year, students at the U.S. Naval Academy became officers for the first time (instead of having to serve two more years as midshipmen) and flung their hats into the air spontaneously.

Since that time, the tradition continued each year, and it has become a ritual at schools — even elementary schools — everywhere!

THE INVENTION OF BASKETBALL

Did you know who invented the basketball?

Dr. James Naismith was a Canadian physical education instructor who invented the game of basketball in 1891 while working at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Dr. Naismith had been challenged to create a new game that could be played indoors in the cold Massachusetts winters to provide an “athletic distraction” to a disruptive group of students. With a two-week deadline, Dr. Naismith decided to invent a game of skill, finesse and accuracy, rather than one that relied on pure strength.

He was inspired by a game he had played as a child called “duck on a rock,” in which players lob a small rock at a “duck” placed on top of a large rock in an attempt to knock the “duck” off.

Using a soccer ball, two peach baskets placed 10 feet up in the air, nine players on each team and a set of 13 basic rules, Dr. Naismith invented the game of “basket ball.” The first game was played on December 21, 1891.

Initially, players could only advance the ball by passing it. Bouncing the ball along the floor — what we call “dribbling” today — did not become part of the game until later.

Players earned points by successfully tossing the soccer ball into the peach baskets. After each basket that was made, players had to climb a ladder to retrieve the ball from the basket. Iron hoops with open-ended nets didn’t come along until 1913!

Interesting basketball facts:
•Dr. Naismith was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959. The Basketball Hall of Fame is now called the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame.

•The first college basketball game was played on January 18, 1896, when the University of Iowa hosted a game with the University of Chicago. The final score was: Chicago 15, Iowa 12.

•U.S. patent #1,718,305 was granted to G.L. Pierce on June 25, 1929, for the first version of what we now recognize as the “basketball.”

•“March Madness” began in 1939, when the first NCAA tournament took place at the University of Illinois.

•Basketball became an official Olympic sport at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany.