BGSU Centennial Sport Blog: Men's Football and Women's Basketball (11:30 Class)

When we first got assigned the football team we were a little upset because of how much research we heard we were going to have to do. But once we began, it wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be. The team began in 1919, and finding the rosters to all the way back then was not a problem at all. The team has been going on since 1919 with no years off or being suspended. In the 90 years of the football team’s existence there have been a total of 17 coaches. There has been an average of 75 players on each team, due to the fact that in the early years of the football team there weren’t a lot of players on each team. The overall record for the football team is 490-328-52. The most memorable team in history was the 1959 small college national champion team. A memorable player and vital part to their success that season was Bernie Casey (below). He later went on to play in the NFL, and also became an actor in several Hollywood movies.

A couple of outstanding coaches that have coached here at Bowling Green were Doyt Perry (see below) and Urban Meyer. Doyt Perry coached from 1955 to 1964, his overall record was 77-11-5 he also coached Bowing Green to the National Championship. And he now has the current football stadium named after him. Urban Meyer coached the 2001 and 2002 seasons, having a 17-6 record at BGSU.

The Bowling Green State University Women's Basketball team has been a varsity sport since 1962.* Although it became an official varsity sport in 1976, the history of the Women’s Basketball team began in 1919. The research for trying to find different rosters for them before they became an official varsity sport was difficult. We looked through past yearbooks and archives trying to find the rosters of the women who played before Title IX took effect and made women's sports into varsity sports. The history wasn’t completely bare of women’s basketball though. Looking through the yearbooks from the 1920’s to the 1970’s we found pictures of women’s intramural basketball and scores from schools they played nearby. So even though they weren’t an official varsity team, their history is still documented.

Some of the people who stood out among the rest in the history of women’s basketball were Sue Hager, Paulette Backstrom, and Chris Tuttle. Sue Hager was a former women’s basketball coach that has helped shape what Bowling Green State University's Women’s Basketball has become today. Paulette Backstrom (see below) played during the 1980’s and won the Francis P. Naismith Award and was later inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1995. In 1989, she was considered one of the premier point-guards in the country. Chris Tuttle was the first woman at Bowling Green State University to join the 1,000 point club in women’s basketball. These are only a few names and faces from the history of women’s basketball at BGSU, but there are still more, even now, that are changing the game of women’s basketball.

*Note: While there is disagreement about the starting dates of Women's Basketball, the date of 1962 was provided by Dr. Janet Parks (personal communication, April 13, 2010).