Krepšiasvydis vyrams


Krepšiasvydis vyrams is regarded as the first basketball educational book in Lithuanian language. It was written by Karolis Dineika in 1922. It is a modest, but significant book for cognition of basketball at that period in Lithuania. During these times, basketball in Lithuania was still called "Krepšiasvydis". It is a mixture of two Lithuanian words: "krepšys" and "sviesti". Yet later it was renamed to "Krepšinis". This name is still used nowadays.

Excerpts

Karolis Dineika in his book described the basketball like that: “Krepšiasvydis is a handheld game. <...> Player by running or walking throws, catches or repulses the ball with his hands. <...> Don‘t try to stand with your head surly lowered. The chest is held protrudingly during the most of the playing time. <...> Participants number in krepšiasvydis depends on the court size. As a result, the participants may be 10, 14 or 18. We recommend first number as the most comfortable number for the flow of the game. <...> The participants are divided into two parts. <...> So, if the participants number is 10, every part gets 5. <...> From these five, at least one will be guard, one keeper and three attackers, who aims at the opponents basket. <...> To distinguish the parts members, one part members ties bands on their hands. <...> The ball accurately shoot from the free-throw line gives a winning eye. The ball, successfully shoot during the zest of the playing time, gives two winning eyes. <...> The part which successfully attacks the basket the most times in a specific period of time – wins.“
Some other Dineika‘s recommendations were such: „Playing can be done before eating or after 1.5 hour has passed from eating. <...> You must not smoke or drink during the playing time. Especially something cold when you are warmed-up. Consuming the cold drinks kills. <...> You have to avoid the popular bad habit to lay down somewhere on the court when you are tired“.