Berenson, Senda (Mrs. Abbott)
Basketball
b. March 19, 1868, Vilna, Lithuania
d. Feb. 16, 1954
Her family emigrated from Lithuania to Boston when she was seven years old, and the family name was changed from Valvrojenski to Berenson. After training at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, Berenson became the first director of physical education at Smith College in January of 1892, just a month after basketball had been invented by James Naismith at the International YMCA Training School in nearby Springfield.
She read about the sport and visited Naismith to learn more about it. On March 21, 1893, Berenson organized the first women's collegiate basketball game at Smith. Influenced by the thinking of her time about women's physical limitations, she soon adapted the rules to avoid the roughness of the men's game.
The major change she made was dividing the court into three areas. There were six players at the time, and two players were assigned permanently to each of the three areas. Attempting to steal the ball was forbidden. Because of that rule, dribbling was limited to three bounces and a player was allowed to hold the ball for only three seconds.
Berenson's rules were first published in 1899. Two years later, she became editor of A. G. Spalding's first Women's Basketball Guide, which further spread her version of basketball for women.
After marrying in 1911, she left Smith. The sister of Bernard Berenson, a major authority on Italian Renaissance art, she later studied art in Europe. She and Margaret Wade were the first two women elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.