Tuesday, November 13, 2012

1906 Girls Basketball Team

An early photograph and account of women's athletics at Brockport. The account of a game is taken from the January 1906 Normalia, predecessor to the Stylus. (Note: in this era games between the Normal School students and local high school teams were not uncommon.)

"The girls' team played their first public game January 18, with the girls of the Middleport High School. It was an easy victory for the Normal girls, winning by the score of 27 to 2. The game was played under boys' rules and was very exciting, although the Brockport girls outclassed the visitors in every department... As the game was the first that the girls had played this season there was much interest and a large crowd was in attendance. Miss Lawton played the star game for the locals, making seven goals. The team work of Miss Baily and Miss Maney was one of the features of the game."

The girls were Caton, Lawton, Snyder, Bailey and Maney. Unfortunately there was no yearbook at this point and the photograph does not indicate the player's names. The woman standing with them is most likely Ermina Tucker, a recent graduate of Oberlin College and teacher of "Elocution and Physical Culture."