Article Review – Jocelyn Moore

Brian Bergman. “When Girls Ruled” The greatest team that ever stepped on a court. Maclean’s Magazine, July. 2001

            This article begins with a discussion of Bergman’s time spent with two former players of the Edmonton Grads women’s basketball team, Maragaret Vasheresse, who was 92 at the time and Edith Sutton who would not disclose her age. He starts off by saying that the Edmonton Grads were “perhaps the most successful squad in the history of Canadian sport”.  He goes on to talk about how although the surviving women of this team are all more than 80 years old, they still remain best friends. He quotes the women saying, “When we get together, you can’t get a word in edgewise”. Bergman then describes the next three hours of the interview as the two friends “finishing each other’s sentences and gleefully charging off rhetorical tangents. In the next part of the article, Bergman starts to give a more detailed background of the Edmonton Grads. He explains how the Grads dominated women’s basketball from 1915-1940, winning 522 or their 542 games. He continues to talk about the grads victories including their Canadian, North American, and world championships. Bergman then reveals one of the grads many admirers, James Naismith, who invented the game of basketball in 1891. He goes on to say how Naismith watched one of the Grads games and said that they were “the greatest team that ever stepped on a basketball floor”. Coach Percy Page is the next person Bergman talks about in the article. He describes the Grads coach as “a mild-mannered educator who coached the team throughout its 25 year existence”. He continues to explain that Percy was the principal of Edmonton’s MacDougall Commercial High School. Quoting some of the surviving grads, Bergman says Percy was a “strict, if low-key, disciplinarian who stressed the basics: shooting, passing, top physical condition and an abstentious lifestyle. He goes on to talk about what Percy expected from the girls quoting Vasheresse “Mr Page wanted us to be ladies first and basketball players after that. Bergman then explains how the Grads helped change women’s basketball from “girl’s rules” to the sport women’s basketball is today. In the next part of the article Bergman starts to enlighten us on how popular the grads were, explaining that they would have up to 6000 fans at their games, which was an outstanding attendance at this time. He also tells of how the team could not go anywhere without being recognized. Throughout the next paragraph of the article Bergman continues to quote the girls on their relationship with the coach, their successes, and their thoughts about the “glitz” of the game today. Bergman ends the article explaining that the Edmonton Grads disbanded in 1940 because of the outbreak of world war two. He finishes off saying that most of the grads then married, raised children, and pursued their careers.

                 Among his findings, I found that his acknowledgement of grads part in the shift in women’s basketball from “girls rules” to the rules of women’s basketball today to be very applicable to my life. I really feel that being a women’s basketball player, we often forget about the women, such as The Grads, who fought for equality in women’s sports in Canada. I believe that the Grads should be remembered for not only being the best women’s basketball team in history, but for changing the game for all female basketball players. I think that Bergman’s article does a great job of showcasing this. Overall, the author does a good job of highlighting both the hard facts about the Edmonton Grads and the intimate details about the team. The author covered the team’s success, their popularity, and added a personal glimpse into what it would have been like to be on the team. I think using an interview as a primary source for the article is what made it so great. The interview portion of the article is what gave the greatest detail and insight about the grads. However, I think it would have been useful to ask more interview questions about the team and sport itself. Most of the quotes used from the interview were the women’s thoughts about their coach. Although this was very insightful, I think that there could have been better quotes or questions used. His research seemed very valid, and by reading his article, I feel inspired to further investigate the importance of the Edmonton Grads and their impact on women’s sport in Canada.