The World's First Women's College Basketball Team: The California Golden Bears

It is not widely known that it was the University of California, Berkeley, which gave the world the very first women's college basketball team. The Cal women played the first game ever by a women's college team against an outside opponent in 1892, only a year after the game of basketball had been invented by James Naismith.  Four years later, the Golden Bears played the first women's intercollegiate basketball game in history -- against arch-rival Stanford, of course.  The Cal women were the powerhouse of women's basketball in the west throughout the late 1890s, and into the early 1900s.  And the women accomplished all this more than a decade before the Cal men ever thought of playing intercollegiate basketball.  Here is the story of the beginning of women's college basketball, right on the Berkeley campus.

4'10" Sarah DeForest Hanscom shows off the 1896 Cal women's basketball uniform, with "UC" on the front in blue and gold

Before we are inundated by hordes of outraged Smith College fans, let me give due credit to Senda Berenson, the "Founding Mother" of women's basketball.  Shortly after James Naismith invented the game of basketball in the fall of 1891, Berenson, a physical education instructor at Smith College, read about the new game and decided it would be excellent exercise for the women in her classes.  She introduced the sport to her students, and by the spring of 1892 they began playing intramural games between the freshmen and sophomores. 

Senda Berenson, the Lithuanian Jewish immigrant who became the "Founding Mother" of women's basketball

Basketball as a sport for women caught on around the country immediately.  By the fall of 1892, a group of women at the University of California in Berkeley formed a team to represent the University in games against outside opponents.  On November 18, 1892, the Cal women's team played a game on the Berkeley campus against a local prep school called Miss Head's School.  This was the first women's basketball game played in the western United States.  Even more significantly, it was the first game ever played by a college women's team against an outside opponent, making the Bears the first women's team ever to represent their college in a basketball game.  Unfortunately, there is no record of the details of the game.

The Cal women spent several years from 1892 to 1895 playing against prep schools and women's clubs.  Eventually, the women of Stanford University established their own women's basketball team and in the spring of 1896, they issued a challenge for a game to the women in Berkeley.  The challenge was accepted and the first women's intercollegiate basketball game ever was set to be played at the Page Street Armory in San Francisco on Saturday, April 4, 1896. 

The game created quite a stir in the San Francisco Bay Area.  As yet, there was no men's college basketball being played in the west.  In fact, the Cal men would not play their first intercollegiate basketball game until 1907 -- eleven years in the future.  So the women were true pioneers, introducing a brand new sport into the on-going Cal-Stanford sports rivalry. 

Men were banned from attending the game because it was considered unseemly for them to witness scantily-clad (by the standards of the time) young women running around, rough-housing, and perspiring.  Despite this ban, there was such enormous interest in the contest by the women of Cal and Stanford that it was a sell-out, with an attendance in excess of 700. 

The game was played nine-on-nine, in two 20-minute halves.  The court was divided into three zones, with three players from each team assigned to, and required to stay within, each zone.  There was no dribbling, but players could run no more than five steps before they had to pass the ball to a teammate, while their opponents tried to intercept the pass. The rules for women's basketball laid down by Senda Berenson at Smith College had been written to ensure that the game remained "ladylike," with efforts to bat or snatch the ball away from opponents and other "rough play" banned.  But the young women out west were made of sterner stuff, and the team captains, Elizabeth Griswold for California and Stella McCray for Stanford, agreed to rules which allowed their teams to play a much more aggressive game than the easterners.

Diagram for the zones of the court and positions of the players in the nine-on-nine game from Senda Berenson's book, "Basket Ball for Women"

Both the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner sent women reporters to cover the game, and both papers gave it extensive coverage.  The Chronicle reporter, Mabel Craft, had a special interest in the game.  She had graduated first in her class from the University of California in 1892, but had been denied the University Medal which was awarded to the top graduating senior, because the University President declared that the Medal was reserved for men.  The second-place graduate, Joseph Garber, refused to accept an honor which he did not believe he had earned, and the Medal went unclaimed. Craft, who would have a distinguished journalistic career and become a campaigner for civil rights for African-Americans and for women, clearly saw women's basketball as a means of demonstrating the physical and mental abilities of women.

The game itself proved to be low-scoring, to say the least.  The fact that the backboard had not yet been invented made the distance to the basket difficult to judge, and meant that shots had to be extremely accurate to make it into the basket. Players were also prohibited from using two hands to shoot the ball, further hampering their accuracy.  And the three forward players for each team were definitely not extremely accurate.  Nevertheless, the crowd was very enthusiastic, and both the Cal players and the Stanford players, attired in blue and red, respectively, fought hard. According to the Chronicle's Mabel Craft, the crowd jammed the gallery at the Armory and "roared until the glass doors in the gun cases shivered at the noise."

Craft described the game as "snappy," with, "many calls for time and some disputes."  Craft continued, "Enthusiastic captains claimed fouls, and some were allowed.  Sometimes with a slump and a slide, three girls would dive for the ball, and end in an inextricable heap of red, white, and blue.  In less time than it takes to read it, they were all planted firmly on their two feet, flushed, perspiring, intensely in earnest, and oblivious of everything except that ball." 

Craft was enthusiastic about the athletic ability shown by the players, and thought that the game demonstrated that women were not the frail creatures, prone to hysteria, so often portrayed by the medical profession and society as a whole. "Basket-ball wasn't invented for girls," she wrote, "and there isn't anything effeminate about it.  It was made for men to play indoors and it is a game that would send the physician who thinks the feminine organization 'so delicate' into the hysterics he tries so hard to perpetuate."

Illustration of the April 4, 1896 Cal-Stanford game from the San Francisco Chronicle.  The California players have "UC" on the front of their uniforms. 

Baskets counted as one point.  Stanford drew first blood when Miss Clark scored 10 minutes into the game.  Five minutes later, Miss Katherine Jones of Cal tied the game with a basket of her own.  The game remained a 1-1 tie at the half, when the players rested on the floor of the Armory, snacking on orange slices.  The second half was scoreless until, at the very end of the game, Miss Tucker of Stanford made a free throw for the win.  Final score: Stanford 2, California 1.  Despite the loss by her alma mater, Mabel Craft wrote that the game had been a great success for women's athletics.  According to the Chronicle, the game was, "the first great struggle in feminine athletics."

The Stanford team was greeted at the Palo Alto train station by a large and enthusiastic crowd.  Each of the women on the Stanford team was awarded a varsity letter - something that would not happen again until after the passage of Title IX in the 1970s made it mandatory for colleges to provide women with the opportunity to play varsity sports.  Jane Stanford, the University's co-founder and sole Trustee, sent the team a note of appreciation for their efforts.

The 1896 Stanford women's basketball team

The California players were disappointed by the loss, but also determined to re-double their efforts to achieve athletic excellence.  Soon an entire league of women's basketball teams was established, with California and Stanford being joined by teams from Mills College in Oakland, the University of Nevada in Reno, and several teams sponsored by various YWCAs.  California quickly became the dominant team, going undefeated in 1898, including lop-sided wins of 10-1 against the Mission YWCA, and 13-1 against Mills College.  The Bears played Nevada in Berkeley on April 9, 1898. The Nevada players were treated to lunch at one of the dorms in Berkeley, and spent the night at the homes of the Cal players.  California continued its basketball dominance, defeating Nevada 14-1. The Cal women were praised by The San Francisco Chronicle for having displayed as much guile and trickery as the Stanford football team! The Chronicle's Mabel Craft told readers that this game was so physical that it, "would have crushed into fine powder those Dresden china shepherdesses who had the honor to be [these players'] grandmothers."  Craft added, "Fourteen to one was the tune to which the Berkeley co-eds literally and figuratively wiped up the floor of the Odd Fellows' Hall yesterday with their guests from Nevada.  It is not a polite way to treat visitors, but almost anything goes in basket-ball."

Despite their big loss, the Nevada team enjoyed the trip to Berkeley so much that they agreed to return the following year. Nevada had hired a new coach, Ada Edwards, who was a former Stanford assistant.  She taught her team to play much more aggressively.  And, in a demonstration that the west coast game was not the "ladylike" affair still favored back east, the 1899 game was played so ruggedly that one Nevada player had her nose broken as she was elbowed during a scramble for the ball.  California won the game, but the 7-3 final score was much closer than the prior year, and the all-female crowd was very excited and enthusiastic throughout. 

In light of the great success of the Cal women, a vote was held among Cal's existing varsity lettermen in 1898 to decide whether the women should be awarded varsity letters.  The letter holders -- all men, of course -- voted to deny the women varsity status.  The acerbic Mabel Craft, no doubt still smarting from having being denied the University Medal because of her gender, thought that the Cal men -- who had yet to win a Big Game against the Stanford football team -- were envious of the greater success of the women.  Craft wrote, "The athletic girls from the Berkeley hills proved that if the young men can seldom win at anything, the girls at least are capable of upholding the college honor."

But the Stanford women were having an even more difficult time of it.  Despite the enthusiasm of the students and Mrs. Stanford over the 1896 win against California, the Stanford faculty and, most particularly, University President David Starr Jordan, found women's participation in serious athletic endeavors to be unseemly.  In 1899 the Stanford faculty athletic committee abolished women's intercollegiate sports at Stanford, "for the purpose of guarding the health of the individual player."  The most vehement rejoinder to this action by the Stanford faculty and administration came from students at the University of Nevada who passed a resolution stating: "Let the girls play basket-ball if they want to.  Encourage and assist them in every possible manner, and if the misguided professors of Stanford University should say, "Nay, nay . . . ' we shall call them a lot of bald-headed, long-whiskered, cross-eyed old billy goats."

The Stanford players were deprived of all support from the University and of their status as their school's representative team.  However, they did form the independent "Palo Alto Club," which kept competing in a league with California, Mills College, Nevada, and San Jose Normal College (now San Jose State). 

In 1907, the Cal men finally began to play the sport of basketball, which turned out to be a death-blow for women's basketball.  The attention which had been given to the women's team for the first eleven years of Cal basketball was now focused on the men.  While the men were given support, including uniforms, assistance with travel, arrangements for games with opponents, and practice time in campus facilities, similar assistance was denied to the women.  Within a few years, organized women's intercollegiate basketball came to an end at Cal.  It was not until 1974, after the passage of the federal law commonly known as Title IX, which compelled colleges and universities to provide varsity-level athletic opportunities to women students, that the Cal women's basketball team finally achieved the varsity status it had been denied in 1898.  But despite these great set-backs and struggles, women's basketball and women athletes in general owe a great debt to those intrepid Golden Bears who helped create the sport of women's college basketball 119 years ago.

GO BEARS!

Sources

California Golden Bears, hoopedia.nba.com/index.php?title=California_Golden_Bears

Emery, Lynne, The First Intercollegiate Contest for Women: Basketball, April 4, 1896, www.directessays.com/viewpaper/25306.html

Grundy, Pamela and Shackelford, Susan, Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women's Basketball, The New Press, New York (2005)

Lannin, Joanne, A History of Basketball for Girls and Women, From Bloomers to Big Leagues, Lerner Publishing Group, Minneapolis (2000)

Macy, Sue, "Gibson Girls Become Basketball Women," The New York Times (March 24, 1996)