'Natural' Squads
Exhibit Tallness

The game is all natural.
Guided by public research on growth, Short AND Tall adopts the real-world frequency of human heights to neutralize the tallness advantage.

The few tall players on every squad employ their natural edge while outnumbered by supporting teammates from the population majority.

A standard allowance limits tallness to 20% of a 10-player squad format. This percentage
is proportion matches the population share of tallness of people, various ages and gender, reported by U.S. Government survey statistics.

For selection to a squad, players are grouped by their relative tallness. Lines on a wall mark four sizes corresponding to the real-world height progression of the tallest, the population 20%.

The vast swarm of other prospective players, all of ordinary height, are assigned zero tallness. Only a few in this 80% majority require judging at the wall. Usually it takes only a glance to recogzize zeroes.

Players, assigned Units, comprise the Availability for squads. See Suppose.

The playing squad is a slice of the population.

Grouping is tantamount to eliminating height in selection. Within each group, height is nearly identical for all players, so skill (hoopability) at the height determines squad placements.

Players on practice squads exhiibit skills in practices and games enabling the club or campus to organize a "stars" squad challenging for supremacy in the area.

The tallness allowance of five Units is a squad asset that is uniform among rivals. It prevents dominance by height. There are no "tall teams."

Coaching 'Availability'

In Short AND Tall, the assigning of Height Units creates "coaching the Availability."
Candidates are Available in groupings of tallness, judged as necessary by marks on the wall. Then come key decisions.
Squad formation weighs the abilities of players equal in size. Strategies seek to maximize tallness.
Can the squad afford another tall player within the allowed Units? At no "cost," is
another ordinary-height candidate of the population majority preferred?

4 Fingertops Depict
Units and Wall Marks

For this llustration, let each top of a finger represent a wall mark.
All space below the top of the little finger = "0 Units"
Space below other fingertops = 1, 2 and 3 Units. Space above the index finger = 4.
Five Units is the maximum allowed tallness for a squad.

BART the BARTENDER

Hoops for All
Short AND Tall

The vertical goals on a basketball court create a harmful void. The impact is double. They block most ordinary-sized persons from a team, and they forfeit an extraordinary amount of potential talent.

Damaging as the void is, let's not even think about altering the court or bothering the great sport to search for a remedy. Basketball

CHALLENGE 'ALL COMERS'

is a busy bystander, thriving by leaps, bounds and dunks. Best to stay uninvolved.
The void hurts millions. The extent of damage is suggested in research reports of the U.S. Department of Welfare Center of Health Statistics.
Normally we speak of a "six-footer" as a tall man. U.S. Welfare Center surveys find that fewer than 20% of males 18-24 are, in the six-footer sense, "tall," leaving 80% "non-tall." By this 1:4 ratio, player selection by merit-other-than-height is four times as competitive in the 80% group as in the tall 20%. Plus, there's the ratio's second impact - namely, that four times as much natural merit-other-than-height is foregone among the 80% group as is lost in the 20%.

Consider a campus and 10,000 prospects. The 1:4 ratio suggests that (1) each lone candidate among five of the 10,000 needs skill four times greater than do taller classmates, and that (2) the possible effect on quality of play of selection by merit-other-than-height (hoopability) is ignored in 8,000 prospects by four times as much as is foregone among the 2,000 tall.
By the 1:4 ratio, (1) the one candidate among five of ordinary height requires exceptional skill at a rate four times as much as taller classmates, and (2) potential hoopability for game quality is ignored by four times more in ordinary height as in the tall. (Data for all various ages and gender support "1:4.")
The option of a SEPARATE ACTIVITY, played like five-on-a-side basketball, seems justified.
Short AND Tall offers (1) player participation regardless of height, and (2) a "quadrupling" of hoopability.
In its few essential rules, Short AND Tall assures that player tallness in a 10-player squad simulates the natural human range. Tall players share their natural height advantage proportionately with teammates of ordinary size, who are drawn from about four-fifths of the populace. All candidates, including the tallest, are selected at their tallness level.

The hoops game is presented for recreation departments, camps, clubs and semi-pro leagues or tournaments. Where to play? On basketball courts! Competition for facilities suggests constructing more gyms, church basements, arenas etc.

So whatever, promote skill. Neutralize the tallness advantage between squads as you introduce this SEPARATE ACTIVITY. Click for rules, wall markings and other guidelines.

Pound for Pound "Inch for Inch"

Sugar Ray Robinson (1921-1989) was, to the Associated Press, the greatest boxer of the last century. To RING Magazine, he was the all-time best "pound for pound."

Pound for pound extends merit beyond Robinson's 141-to-160 class. The 200-pound heavyweight Muhammad Ali, who was named the "greatest athlete" by The Sporting News, called Sugar Ray "my king, the master, my idol."

Stars in basketball today are invariably very tall. A Short AND Tall star has merit like "pound for pound."

THE RUNGS OF HOOPABILITY

The Acquisition Ladder

12. Creativity
         11. Controlling     
 10. Driving     
    9.  Backing    
                 8.  Screening             
        7.  Rebounding
6.  Stealing
         5.  Guarding       
    4.  Accuracy   
3.  Passing
        2.  Jumping       
      1.  Running     

'The Wall' Groups Skill by Heights

Discard the yardstick, ruler and measuring tape - even the doctor's scale. You won't need them - that is, after you've marked your wall with the four Tallness levels to form a Short AND Tall playing squad.
Once each season, judge your tall prospects (plus a few close calls) for Units 1 to 4 at the wall. This creates Availability for a squad up to 10 players.
Most prospects are "zero" Units. By glancing, you judge nearly all these "ordinary"

heights apart from the wall.
The four marks reflect the natural range of human heights (unique marks for age and gender.)
Short AND Tall allows up to five Tallness Units on a squad. Thus, a "tall team" doesn't exist.

A squad welcomes all heights (approximately 80% ordinary, 20% tall). The expanded Availability improves game quality.

FULL COURT PRESS

    2 Added Key Rules

Two incidental game rules support the system.

First, a squad of under 10 players grants, at halftime, two free throws for each reduction from 10.

Second, every non-starter is automatically on the lineup opening the second half. The starters may then re-enter one substitution at a time.

GUIDELINE ON WALLMARKING

To administer a campus, camp, town or recreation league or tournament, click Admin and the other guidelines below.

         College Clubs History
The Iona College club team defeated Manhattan College, 71-67, March 24, 1970. This championship at Fordham University tested the original
Balanced Basketball.

Steps to a Campus Club

        Affirmation

Preceding every Short AND Tall game:.
While players align facing height to height, the coaches affirm the format 10 rule and the 5-Unit tallness allowance. They may exchange Game Lists.

Hoopability Defined hoopability n. L -abilitas

Talent regardless of height. (skill on the court.)

SUPPOSE ...