Thatโs far from an illogical rationale. But the NRL stands at a crossroads here that American collegiate sports fans of a certain vintage might find oddly familiar.
Unstoppable: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar during his time at the LA Lakers.Credit: Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
As league officials contemplate radical changes to the kick-off, they tread on ground once occupied by college basketball officials who, in their infinite collective wisdom, decided that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was simply too good at slam-dunking the ball through the hoop, such that he must be restrained from doing so.
Let that sit with you. For a decade from the late 1960s, US college basketballers were banned from slam-dunking.
To alter rugby leagueโs kick-off rules would serve to upend 119 years of convention. Allowing teams that have just conceded points to choose whether to kick off or receive the kick-off to restart play is the kind of innovation that might appeal as reasonable in a boardroom; the type of tweak that promises to add strategic depth and excitement in an entertainment-saturated world.
If the 17 clubs are united in the vehemence of their opposition to the idea, they could sign some sort of binding death pact: each promising never to elect to receive the ball after conceding points. As if that would ever happen โฆ
The parallels between rugby league in 2026 and US collegiate basketball in the 1960s seem absurd at first blush. What does a primarily antipodean collision sport and its kick-off protocol have to do with banning a basketball technique because one player deigned to perfect it?
Both cases illuminate the perilous calculus that sports administrators face when they contemplate rewriting the fundamental grammar of the sports they serve as custodians of.
From 1967 through to 1976, the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the US enacted one of the most controversial and transparently discriminatory rules in sports history: a ban on slam-dunking the basketball during matches.
The promulgated rationale spoke of preventing injuries and damage to equipment. The unofficial reason was more straightforward: the NCAA wanted to stop a single player making a mockery of opposing teamsโ defence strategies and match results in the process, with his unstoppable slam.
That player the NCAA wanted to stymie was Lew Alcindor; who would later change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The same player, who by the time he retired in the late 1980s, held NBA records for the most points scored and games played.
He dominated college basketball at UCLA with his powerful dunks and overwhelming physical presence and led the UCLA Bruins to three consecutive National Championships from 1967-69.
After the 1967 NCAA Championships and once Alcindor put on his first championship ring, the NCAAโs rules committee, manifestly troubled by Alcindorโs physical dominance and penchant for the slam dunk, set about evening up the playing field by eliminating his most spectacular weapon from his repertoire.
Which, in one sense, is the antithesis of the reason the NRL wants to alter the kick-off rules, because it wants to generate greater razzmatazz. But yet itโs also the same reason, because the NRL wants to quell dominance.
The NCAAโs โslam dunk banโ backfired. Spectacularly. Instead of diminishing Alcindorโs impact and physical domination, the prohibition just forced him to develop his trademark skyhook, an almost unblockable scoring shot that developed into arguably the most devastating offensive weapon in professional basketball history.
The slam-dunking ban deprived fans of basketballโs most exciting play and squashed the gameโs evolution.
Rightly or otherwise, the ban was perceived by many, particularly in the African-American community, as the NCAAโs attempt to suppress the increasingly athletic, above-the-rim style that was being added to the sport.
The rule had racial undertones that the NCAA could never adequately explain away.
When the ban was finally quashed in 1976, dunking returned with a vengeance, becoming the core to basketballโs identity and marketing appeal.
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Imagine if Michael Jordan never been able to dunk at the University of North Carolina.
The NCAAโs attempt to legislate against athletic prowess stands as a cautionary tale about rule changes motivated by fear of change rather than genuine sporting concerns. It remains surely one of the most regrettable decisions in college sports history โ a myopic solution in search of a problem that never really existed in the first place.
The very fabric of a sport is an important imperative. It shouldnโt be fiddled with indiscriminately.
Successful rule changes target discrete issues with surgical precision, while failed changes attempt to fundamentally alter competitive balance or strategic incentives in ways that produce cascading, unintended consequences.
