Men's Ice Hockey and Women's Swimming (1:00 Class)

With this year (2010) being Bowling Green State University’s centennial year, we took it upon ourselves in our sports management class, History and Philosophy of Sport, to look back at the history of each and every one of Bowling Green’s varsity sports. As groups we decided on two sports that we would research, one men’s and one women’s sport. Our group selected men’s ice hockey and women’s swimming. From the start each group member showed a huge interest in hockey, so we all decided that ice hockey would be the most interesting men’s sport to research. As for swimming, we thought that it would be most beneficial to research a sport that we as a group weren’t as familiar with.

Men’s Ice Hockey which is one of the main sports Bowling Green State University is known for ended up being the most interesting to research. As we started the research process we found it fairly easy to find information about hockey at Bowling Green. The majority of our information on ice hockey was found on the internet, through news paper articles, and the NCAA and CCHA websites.

Men’s ice hockey started in 1969, and since the team started here at the university they have had six coaches. Over the past forty one years these six coaches have taken them to nine appearances in the NCAA Tournament, one of those appearances being an NCAA National Championship in 1984 (Newton & Pletch, 2010). The 1984 National Championship win was one of the biggest accomplishments for men’s ice hockey along with a CCHA regular season banner win in 1987. Along with NCAA and CCHA appearances, the players and coaches of men’s ice hockey received several awards for Player of the year, Rookie of the year, Coach of the year, most valuable player in a tournament, Best Offensive Defenseman, and the Terry Flanagan Memorial award. Players that have received the player of the year award include Mike Liut, John Markell, Ken Morrow, George McPhee, Brian Hills and Brian Holzinger (Newton & Pletch, 2010). Players who have received the Rookie of the year award include George McPhee, Paul Ysebaert and Nelson Emerson (Newton & Pletch, 2010). Throughout the forty one years Bowling Green hockey has been around three of the six coaches have received the coach of the year award including Ron Mason in 1975, 1977, and 1978, Jerry York in 1981, and Francis “Buddy” Powers in 1994 (Newton & Pletch, 2010). The most valuable player award was received by two players, those being Mike David and Paul Connell (Newton & Pletch, 2010). Within the last twenty years of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association Rob Blake, Kelly Perrault and Mike Jones all received the Best Offensive Defenseman award and Doug Schueller and Jordan Sigalet received the Terry Flanagan Memorial Award (Newton & Pletch, 2010).
Along with the many accomplishments and awards Bowling Green hockey players and coaches received throughout the years, one major accomplishment for not only Bowling Green, but also for the United States included two 1980 Bowling Green Hockey players. Ken Morrow, and Mark Wells were two individuals who played for Bowling Green State University men’s ice hockey program and were chosen to play in the 1980 Olympic games. These two players were a part of United States history otherwise known as “The Miracle on Ice”. The Miracle on Ice is when the United States hockey team won an Olympic gold medal after defeating the Soviet Union, moving them on to the final game where they then defeated Finland.

Women’s Swimming is what we found to be an underrated sport. As we started the research process for swimming we found it very difficult to find the most simple of documents like rosters, overall records, and even documentation of when the sport started. We found that women’s sports in general were not very well recorded throughout the last 100 years. As we continued to search for records of the women’s swimming team we used resources such as the Key Yearbooks, and the archives at the Jerome Library located on the Bowling Green campus. Although the Key Yearbooks were available as a source of research, we found that although the swim team was mentioned, not all rosters were documented. From there our group moved on to the Jerome Library Archives were we found team programs that help us to piece together the year women’s swimming began and what women participated in the sport over the years.
Women’s swimming began here at Bowling Green State University in 1980,* and over those twenty years six coaches have led the team. Throughout the twenty years Bowling Green Swimming has been around the women that participated on the team have set many records in the MAC Conference and have received many awards. Some of the outstanding women of Bowling Green swimming include Cheryl Patteson who set the 400 individual medley, the 1,650 Freestyle, the 200 Butterfly, the 200 individual medley, and was named swimmer of the year in 1993, 1994, and 1995 (Women's MAC Records, 2007). Along with Patteson, Josie McCulloch set many records that included the 100 breaststroke, the 200 breaststroke, and went all American in 1991, 1993, and 1994 (Women's MAC Records, 2007). Over the past six years five members of the swim team were each named All MAC- First Team, including Sarah Agnew, Stephanie Buckner and Alisha Yee who all received the honor once and Caroline Keating who received the honor twice (Women's MAC Records, 2007). Along with the players, coaches also received awards; one in specific was Coach of the year which was given by the MAC conference. Two of Bowling Green’s past Swim team coaches have received that award including Brian Gordon, who received it in 1988, and 1993, and Randy Julian who received it in 1997 (Women's MAC Records, 2007).

*Note: This starting date differs from the dates found by Dr. Janet Parks and Ann Bowers. In fact, there were two different swimming teams for women that began well before 1980. One team that was known as the Splashers featured both Swimming and Diving and began in 1948. The other team known as the Swan Club, featured Synchronized Swimming, and competed from 1939-1978.

Members of this Group include: Jon Anderson, Samantha Bova, Nick Braun, Matt Magby, Dane Mansfield, and Tyler Whitehouse.