Men’s Baseball (1:00 Class)

Eight years after Bowling Green Normal College was founded in 1910 a baseball program was started. Since then BG has had a long history of success in the sport starting with the team’s first championship in 1921. Current coach Danny Schmitz has been coaching at the University for 21 years and said BGSU baseball is very proud of its past.
“Well … we are very proud of the history that we have in regards to baseball. We’re proud of the University,” he said.

Schmitz said the team even took the opportunity to share in the Centennial Celebration last spring by playing a Centennial game against Kent State University. Kent is also celebrating it’s centennial.

“Kent wore their throwback grays and we wore the throwback white uniforms, so it was really neat. The players really enjoyed wearing the uniforms …It was fun, It really was,” he said.

Bowling Green State University players are proud of their university and still come back to watch games played today, even when they played back in the 70’s or even before. Some players such as Gary Haas, a Hall of Fame winner and Academic All American played in the 70’s and was a part of the 72’ MAC championship team still visits from time to time and fully supports how the current team is doing: “I think Dan is doing a good job, they have won the MAC three years in a row, not this year, but they won the division not the MAC, Dan does a good, a great job. The baseball team has a lot to look forward to in the coming years especially with a great coach and supportive alumni, the sky is the limit.

Members of this group include: Kyle Miklas, Kevin Murphy, and Becky Tener

Men’s Football (1:00 class)

The game of football is the most popular sport in the United States of America, and it could be argued that college football is the most popular level of the game. This is why we chose Bowling Green State Univesity Football for the Sport Centennial project, as well as all of our interests in this sport. Since last semester’s classes covered the complete history of the sport, we were asked to choose a specific time in history to cover. As a group we decided to research the most recent history of the program which can be dated from 1990-present. The reason we chose this time period is because of the amount of information that is available from these years. As we progressed through the project we found it difficult to contact former players who played at Bowling Green prior to 1990.

While researching football here at BGSU, we found out that there have been many firsts for the program from 1990 to present day. A few of the more interesting ones are: first bowl game win (1991), first and only visit by ESPN’s College Gameday (2003) (Below), and first Big Ten School to play at Doyt Perry Stadium when Minnesota visited BG in 2008. Some other interesting facts that we found were that since 1990 the BG Football team has participated in six bowl games (four wins), had eight All-Americans in the program, and had nine players drafted in the National Football League. These statistics show that BG has been successful in developing great teams, but also great players.

Although this past season was not as successful as recent years, the Bowling Green State University football program has experienced many other great campaigns. Even in the twenty years in which we have focused, the amount of success BG has obtained is quite remarkable for a Mid-American Conference school. We think it is reasonable to say that if the future of BG football is any representation of the past, we are in for many great seasons to come.

Group Members: Tina Byrd, Katie Brown, Andrew Downing

Womens Basketball (1:00 Class)

For the Sports Centennial Project, we were excited to learn about the rich history of Women’s Basketball at BGSU. In particular, we choose to research about this sport due to the recent success and energy it has brought to BGSU athletics: 6 consecutive MAC Championships, NCAA Tournament Appearances, and the highlight of the program, Advancement to the “Sweet 16” in 2007. During the research process, we were able to interview some key players that have been a part of recent success of this program such as: Tamika Nurse, Liz Honegger, and Kate Achter. They were able to give great insight as to what went on during crucial moments as a BGSU Basketball player, as well as reasons why they became so successful.

Kate Achter (Top) and Liz Honegger (Below) in action during 2007 season.

In addition to the recent success, it was also interesting to learn about the history since BGSU Women’s Baskebtall began. We were able to learn a great deal of information about the early days from first hand experience with Sue Hager, one of the first Women’s Basketball coaches at BG. She explained how style of play has changed as well as how the popularity has come a long way in the sport of Women’s Basketball at BGSU. Bowling Green Women’s Basketball started in 1919 as two literary societies playing against each other, which eventually transformed to a low budget intercollegiate sport in 1962.

Throughout its 40+ years in collegiate athletics, BGSU Women’s Basketball has gone through numerous changes in: the recruiting process, style of play, and fan support. Overall, we had a great experience researching on this sport at BGSU and enjoyed seeing how Women’s Basketball has transformed over the last 100 years into one of the top Mid-Major programs in the country!

1919 BGSU Wilsonian women’s basketball team

2010 MAC Tournament Champions!

Members of this Group include: Carrie Bagnoli, Khiry Kelly, and Kelsey Kohlman

Women’s Soccer (1:00 Class)

Though they’re only been around for 13 years, the women’s soccer team here at BGSU has already had some very successful seasons, and is primed to have continued success well into BGSU’s second century of existence. The women’s team has an all time varsity record of 117-130-26 for a winning percentage of .476; they are 60-66-16 in the MAC for a conference winning percentage of.479. They won the MAC regular season title in 2005 and have made nine MAC tournament appearances. They also have two MAC tournament titles and are an impressive 11-6-5 in the MAC tournament overall.

The Women's Soccer team is currently coached by Andy Richards (Above), a native of England, and in his ten seasons as head coach he has posted an overall record of 98-96-22. Our group chose to do our project on the women’s soccer team because even with the short history they have shown a lot of potential and have some stable leadership under Coach Richards. Even though they weren’t our first choice we get to witness the foundation of their program come together and we get to witness the start of something potentially very special. There have already been numerous star athletes come through the program and the team looks more and more promising by the year. Just in the past six years the women have won two MAC tournament titles and have made two NCAA tournament appearances. Even though they are 0-2 in the tournament, they have paved the way for future success by overcoming the program’s overall inexperience. The Falcons seem primed to make a run at dominance in the MAC and to have success for years to come.

Members of Group include: Kyle Hess, Khiry Hills, and David Ryan Mullholand

Women’s Softball (1:00 Class)

Bowling Green State University’s women’s softball team has been around campus for the past 31 years. Although researching the team has proved to be difficult in some aspects due to the lack of records of the team, it has been a very educating experience. Over the course of its history the team has had its share of success both as a team and individually. The team success includes finishing first in the Mid-American Conference in 1988 and 1993. They also were crowned MAC East champions in 2000 and in 2001.
Over the course of history of the Bowling Green State University Softball program there have also been some very impressive individual performances. This includes former Falcons pitcher Vicki Miwa (Above). Miwa is credited with being the first ever softball player to be inducted into the Bowling Green Hall of Fame. She was granted Hall of Fame status after an amazing career as a pitcher for the Falcons. Over her career she became very decorated in honors including second team all region in 1987, and was also a three time first team all MAC player spanning from 1986 until 1988. As one of the most effective pitchers in the history of Bowling Green Softball, Miwa held an astonishing 11 different records at one point in her career while at BGSU.

Throughout the years of BGSU’s softball career the team has had a total of seven different head coaches. Out of these coaches Leigh Ross (Below) had the best career so far. She has the best overall winning percentage out of any coach at .546 and also has had the best MAC winning percentage at .613.

Overall BGSU’s softball team has had its fair share of both ups and downs. Hopefully with some good recruiting and good team play the Falcons Softball team will be able to return to the success it had back under the days of Ross.

Members of this group include: Drew Chenevey, Ian Escher, Matt Konyesni, and Max Lamberson

Women's Swimming (1:00 Class)

We chose women’s swimming because we wanted to choose a women’s sport because all our group members are women but at first we did not know exactly what sport we wanted to do. We knew that the women’s swimming team has had a long and successful history so we wanted to learn more about it. Not many people know about women’s swimming so we wanted to educate more people about the history of the sport at BGSU. Our group also wanted to find a way to relate our ethical project on Title IX and the Centennial project together. We hope that by doing this project we can educate and draw more fans into supporting the very successful women’s swim team.
There were quite a few things that we difficult about finding information about the women’s swim team. Bowling Green did not keep very good records about the history of the sport, so we relied on information that Dr. Spencer provided us and the archives for the majority of our information search. It was time consuming because we had to search through ancient microfilms and yearbooks in order to piece together the data. The yearbooks were not very helpful because they did not give detailed history about the team.

A few interesting facts about the women’s swimming program at BGSU is that it has been around since the 1950’s and has had a total of seven coaches. The newest coach, Petra Martin (Above) was recently hired in August of 2010. The women’s swim team has consistently been one of the top performing teams at the school and their best season was in 1992. Some of the best athletes in history have been Cheryl Patterson, who is 1993 broke two records in the 200 and 400 individual medleys. Alisha Ye broke the 100 backstroke record in 2008, and the 200 backstroke record in 2009. In 2010, Meg Richardson broke three records for the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle records in 2010.

Members of this group include: Rebekah Dyvig, Shamari Hamlet, and Liz Kostelac

Women’s Track & Field (1:00 Class)

When it came time for our group to choose a sport for the centennial project we were eager to select Women’s Track and Field. We were enthusiastic for choosing Women’s Track and Field because we wanted to learn more information about the team and their prolific history. When we began to do research we came across some difficulties in finding adequate information about the team. While searching through the past yearbooks, there were issues with finding valid information that we needed, such as recent coaches, records, and year started. We also struggled with developing an overall record for the team because of the missing information and the immense number of events that track and field have to offer. For many of the years, the team was not even present in the yearbook. This created a predicament because much of the beginning history could not be found. We then searched through the archives of the library and found the missing piece to the puzzle. After this information was discovered our group was ready to dive in head first into the puddle of knowledge that the Women’s Track and Field team had to offer.

Our group had an idea of whom to interview and they were very accessible. After getting in touch with the interviewees the interviews were ready to commence. The interviewees were very enthusiastic about the interviews and supplied supplemental information to us. The interviews gave us a wide variety of the many point of views that will be shared throughout the rest of our paper. With the new information that we have obtained from the interviewees we now have soaked up the puddle of knowledge that is Women’s Track and Field.

Members of this Group include: Saeedah Ahmad, Derek Kuhlman, Bethany Robinson, and Charles Rooney