Photo Essays
LIFE Behind the Picture: Little Leaguers Demand Their Pants, 1954
While its primacy as the national pastime has occasionally been challenged over the years — by football, by basketball and, increasingly, by NASCAR — every...
LIFE With Jackie Robinson: American Icon
When Jack Roosevelt Robinson stepped onto Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, he not only changed the face of professional baseball in America. In ways...
The Big Dance: NCAA Basketball Players Do Ballet
It’s called “The Big Dance,” for a reason, though this might not be exactly what the NCAA had in mind. Basketball and ballet are more similar than one may think...
March Sadness: Photos of Upsetting Loss at the NCAA Tournament
In the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, a glorious win for one team is a heartbreaking, season-ending defeat for the other. The stakes—and emotions—run high in...
The 17 Worst Mascots of March Madness
Mascots are supposed to bring luck and rouse competitive energy for the team that they represent—usually, they range from ferocious animals to warriors who...
College Basketball: LIFE Shoots Old-School Hoops
The college experience — the fads; the controversies; the ever-changing expectations of students, parents and faculty members; and especially the sports — that...
LIFE Behind the Picture: Marines Blasting a Cave, Iwo Jima, 1945
In April 1945, LIFE magazine published one of the most memorable cover images of its four-decade run as a major photographic weekly. The picture, made in March...
A Day in the Life of Detroit Mayor Bing
The former basketball player takes the reins of a troubled city Photographs by Romain Blanquart for TIME
Courting Eighth-Graders
College basketball programs are recruiting kids at increasing younger ages. A gallery of some of the sport's future stars.
Sailors' Day Off
Picnics. Swimming. Basketball. Tricycle races. These are just some of the activities of the sailors and soldiers on the aircraft carrier USS TheodoreRoosevelt,...
China's Hoop Dreams
Thanks to the international success of players like Yao Ming, street basketball has taken off in urban ChinaPhotographs for TIME by Daniele Dainelli / Contrasto...
John 3:16 in Pop Culture
Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow wears the famous verse on his eye black during the 2009 NCAA championship game, tapping into a long history of Biblical...
