July Women's Basketball Archives

July 2007

July 26- More Gold

Well, Candice has another gold medal. This time she needed a little help from Jayne Appel.

They did it on the international stage, by helping the United States win over Brazil in the Pan American Games. It was hard to do in a pro-Brazilian gym of 13,000. But first they had to beat Cuba and others to go a perfect 5-0. The gold medal was United States' first gold medal in Pan American Games competition since 1987.

Jayne had to give up the Worlds to get to here. (That is, playing in the Pan Am Games kept her off under-19 team.)

C: Hey R, what did you do this summer? Besides swiping Pat Summit's water bottle? hee hee!

R: Oh come on, you know I hate going to Tennessee, and I won't' go even if Candace Parker gets married. Why do you ask?

C: The reason I ask is, as the rest of us are having a lazy summer, our girl Candice won a gold medal.

R: Wait, it's not an Olympic year.

C: That's correct, but Candice played for the U.S. Under-21 national women's basketball team and she lead them to the FIBA U21 World Championship in Moscow.

R: Cool. Who did they beat?

C: Well, it's not just who they beat, but how.

R: Okay, how did they beat them?

C: With Candice scoring a million points each game.

R: A million?!?

C: Well, Candice scored 14 points to win the gold with a 96-73 victory over Australia. She previously scored 21 against Hungary and 30 the night before that, and she put up impressive numbers in the exhibition games.

R: Not bad for s summer job. But more importantly, what about Jayne?

C: Well, funny you should ask, as Wiggins and Appel have been named to the 12-member 2007 USA Women's Pan American Games roster, following three days of training camp in Washington, D.C.

R: Did you know Jayne Appel is from Pleasant Hill, CA, where my sister lives?

C: Yes, you have told me that fun fact many times last season.

R: Well, here is a fun fact to make you jealous. My young niece is going to basketball camp this summer...in Pleasant Hill...and guess who her coach is?

C: No way!

R: Yes, none other than Jayne Appel.

C: Can we drive you niece to practice, and then stay all day to watch?

R: Yes, but you have to drive to Pleasant Hill! ha ha ha

C: Oh, I am so there.

R: And I got my season tickets in the mail...the season is just around the corner

C: Can't wait for summer to be over.

C: Hey R, I am reading this really great book.

R: What is it called?

C: It’s called "Shattering the Glass" by Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackelford.

R: Is it a good read?

C: Oh yeah! In the first pages, the book describes the game for women being invented by Senda Berenson, or rather, how she modified the men’s rules for women college players. She was a physical education instructor at Smith College in Massachusetts, and she said the first basketball game between the freshmen and sophomores got off to a rocky start when she tossed the ball in the air for the tip off and a girl threw her shoulder out of joint.

R: Wait, as our faithful readers know, the first intercollegiate game, was between Cal and Stanford. If the game was invented by a gym teacher on the East Coast, why were two western schools the first to compete against each other.

C: Ah, good catch. It seems when the game was being invented, most schools just played intramurals against each other, usually pitting the seniors against the underclassmen. So when Stanford grew restless of playing each other, they challenged Berkeley to a match to be played April 4, 1896, and the rest is history

R: Yes, and we were at the 110 year anniversary luncheon and game where Stanford celebrated. Check out our scoop here:

             Lunch                                                  Game

C: Yeah, and it was cool they had the granddaughter of the women who scored the winning basket ….

R: ….made all the more important by the Stanford winning score of 2-1…..

C: ….right, it was cool that they had her at the luncheon and game.

R: And she even got a free Stanford sweatshirt, the warm and fuzzy fifty dollar kind.

C: The book says after Stanford’s victory, a telegraph was sent ahead to Stanford and the campus broke out in wild celebration, with the men ecstatic, mostly because anytime Stanford beats Cal it’s worth celebrating!

R: Old habits never die, as that’s still true today!

C: Over several hundred people met the train of the victorious women, and they decorated a bus for them to travel back to the campus, and the houses in “Faculty Row” were illuminated in their honor. But, more, importantly, during a reception at Roble Hall, each team members was awarded a Stanford Block "S", a coveted varsity letter--the only Stanford women to receive that honor. This site on basketball history gives a good summary. 

R: Wow, that’s cool. Stanford was so progressive and liberating.

C: Not so fast. After that win, in 1899 Stanford faculty athletic committee grew appalled at the “competitive” nature of these intercollegiate games and abolished intercollegiate competition.

R: Man, Stanford was so short sighted and narrow-minded!

C: Yes, but the ladies formed a Palo Alto Club team and they traveled to other colleges and kept up their skills and Stanford finally relented in 1904 and Stanford became part of the Coast Basketball League. However, most schools stressed exercise and cooperation rather than competition from women, and Stanford was once again banned from intercollegiate play because the faculty thought the women were more interested in “defeating Berkeley, then in the game’s lessons of exercises, cooperation, and good sportsmanship.” Around 1916, Stanford was allowed to play other schools, but by the 1920’s only a handful of 4 year colleges played games against other schools.

R: What did these other schools do?

C: Well, most schools emphasized “Play Days” with class intramural play, then followed by teas and a dances.

R: Teas and Dances!! Can you imagine playing the teams in our Tuesday league and then saying, we beat you by ten, want to come out to a tea and dance? Ha Ha!

C: I don’t even drink tea….

R: …And I am sure no one in our league has an outfit for the dance! Except maybe….

C: Don’t even say it. I don’t want to know who has frou-frou dresses! Um, so anyway, although women’s basketball was back on Stanford’s campus, the emphasis was on intramural matches well into the 1950’s. Although they started competing against other colleges, the games were strictly regulated and competitive attitudes discouraged. Finally around the 60 and 70’s, and with Title IX, Stanford starting playing real basketball.

R And then came (making her voice a good impression of James Earl Jones) A women named Tara VanDerVeer.

C: And the rest, we can say, is history!!

R: Can’t wait to see what chapter they write next year!