BGSU Men's Football History (11:30 Class)

Hello all! Team Falcon is proud to present the history of Bowling Green State University football. Football was an easy selection for all of us because three of us (L-R (Below): Dwayne Woods, Caleb Watkins, and Jairus Campbell) play football here at BGSU. Having three of us on the football team here at BG gave us access to more resources that a non-athletic student here at BG would have. The four of us all share a common bond in our passion and love of the game of football and we are all interested in the history of Bowling Green football. We will start our presentation of Bowling Green’s football history in the late 1950’s when the Falcons won the Collegiate Championship. We will conclude our presentation of Bowling Green’s football history with an overview of the recent years of Bowling Green football and a look into what the future may hold.

As for the research that was required for this assignment, the only issues we had were trying to find information about Bowling Green’s football program online. We found that the most effective, yet tedious, way of researching information about Bowling Green’s football history was either going to the archives in the Jerome Library or utilizing media guides that were provided to us. As for interview, none of us had any issues. The three of us that are on the football team have access to a handful of coaches and former players that were very helpful to us. And the last member of our group, who is not on the football team, was able to come in contact with a former Falcon who was on the 1959 Collegiate Championship team.

Members of this group include: Jairus Campbell, Dev Kumar, Caleb Watkins, Dwayne Woods

Item Of The Week - 1940s BGSU Football Jersey

Hello everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and you are gearing up for Christmas. We are pleased to present our second installment of the Item Of The Week. In celebration of the completion of the 2010-11 BGSU football season this week were are featuring a 1940s BGSU Football jersey. Those who attended the second Centennial Celebration in October got a chance to see this jersey first hand.

For those of you who follow our blog and happen to be Cleveland Browns fans you may notice that this uniform looks similar to the past and current Browns uniforms. As it has been reported in the past the Browns liked the color design so much they adopted it for themselves. According to Mickey Paul Brown liked the look so much he decided to take it back to Cleveland for the Browns.

Mickey was able to share a couple of good stories that go along with this uniform as well. When the Browns were founded in the 1940s they held their annual training camp at BGSU. For several weeks each summer Browns players and Falcon players shared the same field as each team prepared for their upcoming season. This continued for six years (1946-51) before they moved training camp closer to Cleveland.

Mickey also shared a story with us about the Falcons loosing some of their uniforms while traveling. Luckily the teams equipment manager was able to make a call to the Browns equipment manager and have several uniforms sent to BG for the players to wear.

Item Of The Week - Leslie Dawley Autographed Soccer Ball

As we conclude our work for the semester of the course of the next several weeks we have decided to post pictures of some of the items we have come across during our work and provide some of the back story behind the item. Look for at least one item, if not more, a week. If anyone has any requests for pictures please let us know and we will work to find the item and post a picture as well as the story behind it. A big thank you to Mickey for taking time to give us the history behind each of these items.

Leslie Dawley autographed soccer ball

During the 2002 Mid American Conference Soccer Tournament BGSU freshman women's soccer player Leslie Dawley passed away during play due to an asthma attack. Prior to the game Dawley signed this ball. The BGSU archives keeps this ball in memory of Leslie. Dawley had played well during her freshman campaign recording six assists in just eight games. Lawley broke the BGSU record for consecutive games with an assist when she recorded her fifth assist in as many games on October 25, 2002 against Western Michigan. Lawley had become a clutch player for the Falcons as four of her six assists for the season set up game winning goals for the Falcons. We decided to take this first item of the week post to honor the memory of Leslie.

1961-62 BGSU Women's Field Hockey

Thanks to Nancy L. Haines, 1962 graduate of BGSU, for sending the following photo from the 1961 or 1962 BGSU Women's Field Hockey Team. Below are names that Nancy could remember for members of that team.

Front row (L-R): Donna Eubanks, Liz Embree, Karen Nelson

Back row (L-R): Bev Faulk, Nancy Maneely (sure of that one), Carol Lenz, Don't know, Don't know, Liz Bacso.

If anyone has further information about anyone who played on this team, please email us at: bgsusport@gmail.com

Time To Start The Real Work

After a couple of weeks off while Mickey did some traveling to see his family in Texas we are back at work. Since the Homecoming Event has come and gone we shifted our focus towards cataloging the various items in the archives in Anderson Arena. We have spent several hours going through the contents of the athletic archives as well as the storage room on the second floor of Anderson Arena. Over the course of the last week we have been hard at work sorting through the various artifacts in the archives and logging.

During the course of our work we have found artifacts from some of BGSU’s greatest athletes. Additionally, we have found some artifacts that fans have created and submitted to Mickey as a way to remember the athletic programs at BG. Many of the artifacts that we have been working to catalog detail the athletic story of BGSU. From plans for athletic renovations to milestone artifacts we have found a great deal that paints the picture of the history of athletics at BGSU.

The following is a list of the artifacts we have cataloged to this point.

Mascots & Reagan

Mark Miller

Lacrosse monkey

Helms Foundation Nate Thurmond

Soccer (M) NCAA bid 1992

Sport’s collage

Trio of hockey players

Baseball warm-up jacket

Basketball dunk picture

NWOAA Tennis trophy 1929

1987 Volleyball team photo

Central Collegiate Conference Intermediate Team Trophy 1948’

Puerto Rico Holiday Classic 1996 men’ s basketball 3rd place

4i champion Joe Green inter-state champion 1968

25th anniversary hockey puck Feb 25 1967 - Feb 25 1992

Falcon Keychain

BGSU HPER athletic pin

1983-1984 Softball team photo

1964 Tony Trent baseball photo all-mid American conference first team

Official NCAA track and field guide 1957

Spalding official football guide 1938

1964 winter sports banquet Sam Cooper Nate Thurmond Harold Anderson

1988 MAC Softball championship team photo

1962 NCAA Swimming guide Gary Laprise

Program for eastern Michigan game cover 1986

Coach Mel Brodt picture on scooter 1960-1984

1919 Women’ s basketball photo

Bird Brain stuffed animal 1940s

Mid American Conference 21st annual championship guide 1967 Robert H. Whitacker on front

Golden Triangle invitational 2nd place team

Photo of BGSU athletic personnel no names/date

Volleyball beat Navy

Bowling Green v. Toledo 1969 basketball

Archives 1st floor

Eric White Football

Doyt’ s first staff 1955

Dave Wottle 1972 to Doyt

Old Natatorium

Shirley Spork opening of back 9 at Forrest Creason

1920 Men’ s basketball team

University field plans

Soccer celebration photo 1975

Ball State field hockey ball

Ladies lacrosse/field hockey kilt

Hockey stick

Lacrosse stick

Player pro cards

Bergen – HOF plaque Bob Zimpfer

1930 letter sweater

Falcon Club card collage

Suitcase with logo with items in it

1000 win basketball

MAC pennants

Staff pics – 1964

Promo buttons, ribbons, schedules

Team photos

Old trophies 1920s on

#9 quarterback jersey 1941

Support staff pic and AD pic

Mercy Bowl pic and pennant

Baby Freddie Helen Floyd puppet

Stoned t-shirt 1994

Moyticka photo collage

Ziggy Zoomba Gil Fox and t-shirt

NCAA basketball

1918 yearbook Emerson team

Painted Pig ball pic

Football pants garage

Pics named facilities coaches

Frieda head with lashes

8x10 card SBX sign when football/volleyball #1 in MAC soccer #3 in country

Box trophy cases and photos at home

Box trophy case box garage

Swan pic 1968

Telegram 1st NIT

Cheer sweater

Brass plaque of first four teams dropped

Game programs

Normals or pic of normals

1919 cheer

Dave Wottle cap and pic

Swan club boat and pic

Big photo collage – Sam B’ s (Kaufmans)

Purdue football

Palmo pic

Signed hockey sticker

Falcon Club 1st year

Game day pic

University Field pic

Relay Plate from trophy Sink Wottle Dan Forth

Football boots nail in cleats

Sharpies football

Varsity BG sweater

Cunningham collage

2 all sport collages

Leather (brown) BGSU shield

Lacrosse defensemen on a stick

Mark Miller

3 hockey players trio

All sport collage

Thurmond Helms Award

Reagan with Freddie & Frieda

Basketball dunk #23

NCAA 1992 soccer

Baseball jacket

Freddie Falcon club logo

gray travel jacket

1967 Field Hockey ball Dr. Sue Gavron

1995 Capn Crunch Gymnasitics invitational trophy fifth place

1991-1992 Gymnastics program

Charles Simpson 150th head coaching victory

1985 MAC gymnastics champs NCAA tournament

Old hockey skates

1971 stadium pic

1994 basketball MAC champs signed t-shirt

Golf club

Tennis racquet

Al Sawdy traction splint

Please keep checking back as we will update the list of artifacts that we find. We will also work to provide pictures as well.

Centennial Celebration Part Two

As we recap last Friday’s Centennial Athletic event at Anderson Arena let us start by thanking everyone that came out to the event to show their support and celebrate 100 years of athletics at BGSU. The members of this group that have been working for the past several weeks to prepare for the event and organize the athletic memorabilia are thrilled that so many people took time out of their busy Homecoming schedules to make time for this event. We hope that each of you enjoyed the event as much as we have enjoyed putting the event together. For those who were not able to attend we will recap the event for you and provide some pictures for you as well.

The event was attended by roughly 300 people who were lined up to enter as the doors to Anderson Arena opened at 5:00 p.m. Those who were able to attend enjoyed an evening filled with memories and a historical perspective of BGSU athletics. Those in attendance were able to enjoy the artifacts that we have spent the past several weeks working to assemble. In addition those in attendance viewed the Centennial poster’s that were put together for the Centennial Celebration last year. On a personal note, the members of this group find it very gratifying that these boards were used again. It is our hope that these boards can continue to be a source of historical context of BGSU athletics. On a special note the members of this group would like to thank Dr. Janet Parks for her help improving the poster boards for this year’s presentation.

As alumni made their way around the gym many of them stopped and took the time to thank our group for our work in putting together not only the event but the poster boards. For our group these words of gratitude are appreciated. However, each of us were honored to be a part of this event, to hear the stories that the alumni told, and to once again have the opportunity to share the rich athletic history of BGSU with the alumni and other guests in attendance.

The following pictures are all pictures of the various historical artifacts that were on display during the course of the event.

1994 Team Autographed Women’s Basketball MAC Champions Shirt

Men’s Basketball Trophy from a Puerto Rico Holliday Tournament

Sid Sink’s Olympic qualifier Track and Field warm up

Plaque commemorating the sports no longer played at BGSU

Herb Troyer’s football pants – Member of the original BGSU football team from 1919

Artifacts aside, the night was a great success as BGSU alumni were able to come together and celebrate 100 amazing years of athletic history at BGSU. As one guest said “Tonight is amazing, it is truly a unique chance to come back and really look at the history and take stock of the history that happened while we were here.” Alumni were also treated a special way of saying goodbye to the House That Roars, Anderson Arena, in this its final season.

BGSU athletic archivist Mickey Cochran called the evening a “great success.” We believe that those that were present on Friday night would have a hard time arguing that point. We would once again like to take a moment to thank those who came by the event.

Please continue to check back with our blog as we move forward in our work and begin to catalog the contents of the BGSU athletic archives and prepare for the move to the new athletic archive space in the Stroh Center. Coming in the next week we will have a full list of all of the memorabilia that has been cataloged as well as pictures, and plenty of Mickey’s stories to go along.

Unfinished Work - The Centennial Project continues in 2010

Welcome back everyone. After a Centennial Sport Celebration that went better than any of us could imagine last year we have decided to resume our work in bringing you the history of sports at BGSU again this academic year. This year we have been working with BGSU sport archivist Mickey Cochran to catalog to contents of the athletic department archives. In part we have done this in preparation for this week’s homecoming presentation. Also, our collective efforts will assist the athletic department with their preparations for the new athletic archives in the brand new Stroh Center.

Whether we have been examining old photos, looking through old trophies, or combing through old BGSU paraphernalia this experience has allotted us with the opportunity to steep ourselves in the rich athletic history of BGSU. We have located memorabilia related to BGSU greats such as Jackie Motycka, Sid Sink, and Nate Thurmond. It has truly been a unique experience to see all of this and truly put our hands on the athletics history of BGSU. The fact that few people have this unique opportunity has certainly not been lost on those of us who work with Mickey each week.

As was previously mentioned we have spent a great deal of time preparing for this week’s Homecoming presentation in Anderson arena. During the course of these past weeks we have spent a great deal of time going through the athletic archives and the auxiliary storage spaces to find historical artifacts that represent each of the current and past sports that have been played at BGSU. Many hours have been spent combing through the smallest and hottest spaces in Anderson Arena to find the pieces of history we believe will have the greatest impact on those who attend the presentation this week. We have successfully found memorabilia and photos that provide a visual history of BGSU athletics.

Along the way we have had the chance to hear some great stories about the history BGSU sports. Whether its stories about the Cleveland Browns and the BGSU Football team sharing the same football field, the excitement that emanated around all parts of campus during the Falcon’s magical ranked football season a few years ago, or the stories about some of the greatest athletes that have ever played at BGSU, or the conditions of some of the old athletic facilities these stories have become a bright spot in our week.

Just the same as last year we want to encourage as many people as possible to attend the homecoming festivities this week. In particular please make some time to stop by Anderson Arena to take in the homecoming display and the athletic archives. The event will begin at 5:00 p.m. on Friday night and run through 7:00 p.m. Please join us as we celebrate the final Homecoming in Anderson Arena. Let us all enjoy this weekend where we can truly say we are proud to Falcon Alumni.

Also, please continue to check back with our blog throughout the next several weeks as we continue our work on cataloging the current BGSU athletic archives and help Mickey prepare for the archives move to the Stroh Center. We will have great photos, stories, and other great facts about the history of BGSU athletics.

Vintage BGSU Football Jersey