Physics Proves It: Everyone Should Shoot Granny-Style

As a boy in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the 1950s, basketball legend Rick Barry got some painful coaching lessons from his father, a semipro. While the youngster’s friends liked to shoot their foul shots, or free throws, in the respectable overhand style, the old man wanted Barry to toss them just as he did—underhand. “That’s the way little kids shoot, and it didn’t help that everybody calls it the ‘granny shot,’?” Barry says. “I didn’t want any part of it, but my father drove me nuts until I tried it. And amazingly, it worked.” Barry’s average from the free throw line bounced from 70 to 80 percent and kept on climbing when he became a pro. “Nobody ever teased me, but then it’s hard to tease somebody when the ball keeps going in.”