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

Women's Volleyball (1:00 Class)

Our group selected women’s volleyball as the team for our centennial project. We didn't have an early choice, but we thought it would be an interesting sport to choose and learn more about due to its rich and fairly modern history. Women’s volleyball has been around since 1976 at BGSU. We expected to find material on the sport rather easily since it is less than 40 years old. This was actually the case and we were able to find all of the information we needed very easily.

We found rosters from the BGSU archives and found a great deal of information from the BGSU Women’s Volleyball Media Guide found online. It contained all the information, statistics, and pictures from every volleyball player that has played at BGSU. We used this information to attempt to contact former great volleyball players to interview. However, this was a difficult process because we were unable to come up with the contact information we needed. Overall, the media guide was a tremendous help to our research for this project.

Women’s volleyball started to thrive in the mid to late 1980s. There have only been three head volleyball coaches at BGSU and the most distinguished of them is Denise Van De Walle (Above). She continues to lead the Falcons today and just recently won her 500th game against the team from up north. BGSU has been home to some of the best MAC players around when it comes to volleyball. We have numerous record holders and championships from years past.

Members of this group include: Eric Arbogast, Alex Aspacher, Phil Kaiser, and John Shifley

Women’s Basketball (11:30 Class)

Our group chose to do our Sport Centennial project on the Women’s Basketball program here at BGSU for several reasons. The program has a rich history and is a very successful and popular team on campus. Members of our team also have personal connections to the sport of basketball and the Women’s team in particular. We knew when we chose Women’s Basketball that we would be able to get a lot out of doing a project about this team, an idea that proved itself as the semester went on.

In our research, we’ve come across more information about the team and its history than we could have ever imagined. We chose a very diverse group of people to interview about their experiences with the program which gave us a lot of information that we never expected. From Jessie Tamerlano, who played on the team as a freshman last year, to former coaches including the first head coach, Sue Hager (Below), we gathered plenty of information that we would never have found or heard about if we didn’t have those interviews.

Sue Hager was able to give us many stories about the time when the program was just starting up, which was around the time that Title IX was implemented. So we were able to not only get stories about the team’s beginnings, but also ones about how different the sport itself was at the time women were first allowed to play. Jessie Tamerlano (Below), on the other hand, provided us just as valuable information about the team as well, but from a current perspective.

We’ve found that there is an incredible amount of information out there on the team, which is obviously a good thing, but can also be bad for putting a project together. We learned that there are disputes about the history and timeline such as what years coaches were here, the overall record, and even the exact year that the program began. Even former coaches dispute the media guides’ information that we found. So that seemed to be our only issue and we think that BGSU should make an effort to try to get an accurate history of the program for future projects like this.

Members of this group include: Maureen Carr, Matt Dittoe, Lindsay Helm, and Tyler Schaefer

BGSU Women’s Track and Field (11:30 TR Class)

In first hearing about the centennial project our History and Philosophy class would be conducting, our group thought the project seemed very difficult and almost impossible to complete. As time went on and we narrowed down what BGSU sport we wanted to look further into it became very clear how truly interesting and fun this assignment could be. With two of our group members both having a background in running track and field and cross country we decided upon the Bowling Green State University Women’s Track and Field team. We were lucky to have a good selection position in class even though Women’s Track and Field probably was not one of the most popular choices.

In gathering the abundant amount of information through research on the Women’s Track and Field team it was very difficult to find exact dates. But after digging enough and comparing sources, we are confident that all our dates and findings are very accurate. As for the start of the Bowling Green State University’s Women’s Track and Field team, it is said they started in 1983. But 1983 just so happens to be the first year the women were affiliated with the NCAA. According to Dr. Parks 1965 was the official date the women started competing with outside competition with the likes of current MAC teams like Kent State and Ohio University. We conducted several interviews with past figures (see Kim Jamison, below) and current figures who have all been or are currently involved it Bowling Green athletics and the information gathered has been amazing to say the least. Such a rich history not only in just Bowling Green State University’s Women’s Track and Field, but in all the sports and events that have been a part of BGSU’s tradition.

Members of this group include: Mike Davis, Ryan Harrison, Jessica Grant, and Kyle Leedy.

Men's Baseball (11:30 Class)

When we received notice that we had to choose a sports team for our Sport Centennial Sport project we immediately knew what team we wanted to do. We chose to do Baseball because not only did we want to learn more about the sport at BG but one of group members Ben Holbert previously played baseball, and Brandon Robinson knows someone who plays for the team now. As we began to start the research for our project, the hardest thing was choosing what team we wanted to do the research on. While doing this we decided to choose the 1970’s team because they won a championship and was one of the best teams here. But while looking for people to interview from this team we could only get in contact with one person Gary Haas (Below).

Baseball at BG was one of the first sports team started on campus. While conducting research we found tons of information on teams' records and championships. We learned a lot of information about the baseball team through each one of our interviews. Overall as a group we did not have any serious problems finding information on the team. We interviewed someone from the 1972 championship team, and current senior on the team, and a previous player who is now a coach.

Members of this group include: Ben Holbert, Brandon Robinson, and Jasmine Travers.