Our Case Study Carried Out In 1976 Basketball - 1966

This article is to depict a panorama and to detect the problemsof basketball activities throughout the era of cultural revolution on the basis of thenews reports and feature reports in China Sports Daily and Guangming Daily from1966to1976.This decade is divided into three periods. In the early period, as sports activitieswere badly set back, only competitive basketball events were covered. In the middleperiod, from1969to1975, as sports were slowly restored, mass basketball activitiesand school basketball activities in addition to competitive events were all inclusivelycovered. In the later period in1976, the same happened as in the early period.With the period division, basketball activities are to be sorted in three categories.Firstly, in the early period also known as the beginning of the cultural revolution,competitive basketball activities and international basketball exchange programsrelatively smooth. In the middle period, in1969, competitive basketball activitiesseemed to boom with the national men basketball team and the women team touringto28countries and hosting30overseas teams. However, as a matter of fact,basketball was not going in its natural course because of the political reasons. In the7thAsian Games in1974, both the national men team and women team ranked thirdin the Asian Championship. Not only did basketball sport itself make strikingprogress through the international exchanges, but also basketball contributed a lot tothe newly-born nation’s diplomacy. In1976, basketball activities fortunately stoodaloof when all other sports activities declined.Secondly, the study on the mass basketball activities. Since1969, with masssport manipulated by politics, it became not only motivating but also compellent andirrational. Thus mass basketball sport became seemingly prosperous in themovement. Tremendous news reports on basketball were covered in GuangmingDaily and China Sports Daily. Governmental employees’ basketball activitiesunderwent some up and down. In the middle period, it reached its prime as numerousamateur teams were organized. It was the same for the basketball activities in themilitary. In the rural areas, as political influences were belated and weakened for itsphysical distance from cities, basketball sports there was going unexpectedly well.And with the help and guidance of the rusticated youths from cities, basketball sport was popularized, even including women teams. Thirdly, the research on the schoolbasketball sport. Its was strongly distracted at the beginning of the CulturalRevolution. In1967, several articles in Guangming Daily called on the school kids,middle school and college students to go back to school to carry on the revolution.Sports classes at that time mainly involved in manual labors and military-styletraining. Since1970, school basketball sport, as a fundamental curriculum course,had gone through a rapid rise.