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.

Critical Assessment of: Shooting Stars by Zachary Langlois

“Ladies First, Athletes second,” is what Percy Page, coach of the Edmonton Commercial Graduate Basketball Club expected of his team. Shooting Stars, directed by Allen Stein, is a story of the Edmonton Grads basketball club based in Edmonton which played the sport from 1915 to 1940. After graduating from commercial school in Edmonton, Alberta, the girls wanted to continue playing the sport they loved and with the help of their old coach Percy Page they became one of the most up and coming club teams from the sport of women’s basketball. During their span of 25 years, the team played 522 games and only ended up losing 20 of those games. A long with those 502 wins, the team won numerous tournaments and worked together to bring back home 16 world championships.

            Even people like James Naismith, the creator of basketball, gave the team of women some good inspiration by calling them “the finest team ever to step out on a basketball floor”. This quote from Naismith couldn't come any closer to the situation that was happening to them. They didn't have to resort to any fancy tactics to help draw crowds. For 25 years, the Grads packed stadiums around the world and in their hometown of Edmonton, becoming a phenomenon in the process. During their success it occurred during a time of change for women’s sport. Shooting Stars manages to capture the excitement of these women through one on one interviews, live footage from their get together and finally the scenes of original footage of the team and of the audience.

            The documentary also helped the viewers realize the evolution of the uniforms that the teams wore during this period of time. At the start of the film, you see the commercial graduate team wearing long cotton sleeve shirts with knee pads and the combination of long socks. This becomes strong to viewers of the 21^st century because whether you are male or female, you wear shorts with a sleeveless jersey and short or medium height socks. For the director, he got the opportunity to show that because the Edmonton based team was new and still trying to develop, they weren't at the same caliber when it came to modernizing their uniforms as we saw when they played the team from Cleveland who wore cut off shirts and low-cut socks. This creativity let the viewers realize about the importance of time when it came to developing a club team and the importance of their uniforms when the Grads walked out to their next tournament wearing more modernized uniforms.

            One thing that Allen Stein made evident in his documentary was the commitment of all 38 players who had the opportunity to wear the jersey over the 25 year history. They lived and played the sport with the pursuit of fair play and the pursuit of distinction. Even though they weren't getting paid like professionals, they were in my mind more committed to the game, to their coach and to their fans. As we can see during the film was that the fans gave back to the team with loud cheers and chants and by packing the stadium each and every game like it was their job. In the film the players speak of the pressure of their fans expectations. Showing their commitment to loving the game and their fans, the girls would travel to small towns for exhibition games. If you think of any sports club in the 21^st century, it would be rare to see a team travel to small towns to play exhibition games unless the town was the winner of a contest such as the Hockeyville contest in the NHL.

            Watching Shooting Stars, one can`t imagine the world of sport to be anything like this ever again. There`s no way as a sport fan, you can ever imagine so much courage and commitment to a sport, especially if you weren't getting paid like any of these girls were. Even in junior hockey these days, kids’ age 16 to 20 years old are being paid to play the game they supposedly love to play. 

If you want to learn more about the Edmonton Commercial Graduates and view clips and interviews from real players of the Edmonton Grads, you can click on the links below with a real showing of the entire movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARTRfl9PF7Y     (Part one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnPWTdXsXaQ  (Part Two)

Book Review of: Edmonton Grads: 25 years of basketball championships, 1915-1940. By Kelsey MacKenzie

            The book “Edmonton Grads: 25 years of basketball championships, 1915-1940” is a commemorative book about the Edmonton Commercial Grads women’s basketball team. It is also a book of records. The intended audience for this book is for any person who is interested in learning about the greatest North American basketball team of all time. The purpose of this book is to provide an extremely detailed historical biography of the Edmonton Grads basketball team, including records and pictures. The main message the author is trying to portray is that this basketball team is the greatest basketball team of all time and should not be forgotten. The Grads still hold records that have not yet been beat by any other basketball team, for that, the Grads should be forever acknowledged and remembered.
            Prior to reading this book, I had a basic knowledge of the Edmonton Grads team and the coach. This book far exceeded any expectations I had of the book. I expected the book to state the same information I had read on websites, but the book went into far more detail than I would have ever imagined. The book provided the details about the team such as games played, scores of games, struggle for opponents and scrambling for money to pay for basketball trips which allows us as readers to better grasp how truly amazing this basketball team really was.
            The author first provides an introduction of the Grads in which a very detailed overview of the team is written. The book then provides a record of victories in which there are numerous provincial and national championships, international games and exhibition games. Olympic team pictures are illustrated. There is a summary of games played, then statistics of games points and averages. There is a list of team members and when each member played, and pictures of reunions the Grads had over the years. The coach John Percy Page also has a section written about him and lastly, which I thought was a great touch, was a letter of thanks from the Grads in 1974.
            I really enjoyed reading this book; it was very detailed and interesting providing good information and lots of pictures. The part of the book I liked the most was the letter from the Grads; I thought it put a nice personal touch on the book. I have learned tonnes more information about the Grads and their immense success from reading and I am very glad I did. There was lots of information provided that surprised me, such as the Grads being a women’s team play a lot of men’s teams as they found it hard to find opponents. Also, I wasn’t aware that women’s basketball was an exhibition sport for four consecutive Olympics before it became an Olympic sport. Until women’s basketball became an Olympic sport the winners were not awarded medals, meaning that for the 27 games the Grads won at the Olympics they were awarded nothing. I also loved how Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, was included and provided his thoughts on this basketball team. This book is a great read and I strongly recommend it to any basketball fan, or any person who can appreciate such great success of a sport team.

Biography of Coach John Percy Page: By Kelsey MacKenzie

John Percy Page

John Percy Page, who was also referred to as J. Percy Page was the coach of the Edmonton Commercial Grads. He was born on May 14, 1887 in Rochester, New York. His parents, Absalom Bell Page and Elizabeth Thomas, who were Canadian citizens; when John was three years old he moved with his parents to Bronte, Ontario where he was raised. He went to school at Oakville Junior High School, Hamilton Collegiate Institute, Ontario Normal School and Queens University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Also, Page earned a Bachelor of Commercial Science degree from the American Institute of Business.
            Page was a teacher. He started his teaching career in Rothesay, New Brunswick at Rothesay Collegiate. He then transferred to St. Thomas Collegiate Institute. In 1910, Page married Maude Roche and they had one daughter named Patricia Hollingsworth. He was invited to Edmonton, Alberta in 1912 to introduce commercial training into the high school system. He eventually became the Principal of two high schools in Edmonton, McDougall Commercial High School and Victoria Composite High School.
            While Page was at the McDougall Commercial High School he was the coach of the senior girls’ basketball team. Page continued to coach these girls after they graduated on a team known as the Edmonton Commercial Grads. The Grads became the greatest women’s basketball team of all time. The Grads are one of the most successful teams in sport of all time, no basketball team has come close to their record. Over a 25 year span, the Grads won 502 out of 522 games including 4 Olympic appearances. The team’s success can be attributed not only to the natural ability of the players, but also to strong leadership, dedication, sportsmanship and dedication.
            Looking back on the success of the Edmonton Commercial Grads, it is apparent that a great deal of their success is due to excellent coaching. Page developed what he called a “farm system” to form the basketball team. The girls would develop their skills while working their way up through three teams, the last team being the Graduates. When the girls were talented enough to make the Graduate team, Page had already been working with the girls since their earliest playing days. Page set very high standards for both himself and his team. The players dressed and acted like ladies. Page did not allow the players to smoke, drink or chew gum. The players were also not allowed to play once they were married. He used to tell his team “You must play basketball, think basketball and dream basketball”. The Graduates had two practices a week except during the summer months, and Page only missed three practices throughout his whole coaching career. Page’s strong commitment to the team resulted in a low turnover rate of the players, leading to only 38 players ever having played for the Edmonton Commercial Graduates basketball team. The team fell apart in 1940 when its gym was taken over by the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during World War II.
            After the Commercial Grads were over, Page went into politics. He was elected as one of the members for the Edmonton electoral district of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in 1940. He was then re-elected as a Leader of the Opposition. He ran for the Independent Citizens’ Association of Alberta in 1948 but did not win. He was elected as a Progressive Conservative Member in 1952 and was also appointed the House Leader for the Conservatives. He retired from teaching at this time. He was re-elected in 1955 but was then defeated in 1959. From 1957 to 1959 he was a trustee of the Edmonton Public School Board. Page was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame as a basketball builder.
            Page was made a Knight of Grace of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem in 1961. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alberta. The J. Percy Page School in Edmonton is named in his honour. He died on March 2, 1973 in Edmonton, Alberta. 

Noel MacDonald- Player Bio: By Jocelyn Moore

Noel MacDonald

Noel MacDonald was born in Motlach, Saskatchewan January 23^rd, 1915. In 1933 Noel was a 5'10 18 year old when she joined the Senior Edmonton Grads basketball team and then played for seven years. During this time MacDonald received the honor of being named the team’s captain (1936). Throughout her time as a grad, Noel won every women's canadian basketball national championship,aswell as every provincial championship she played in. She was the recipiant of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award in 1938. She also competed in exhibition play at the Berlin Olympics, where she was named captain. During her time at the oympics, the Grads one every match they competted in. By the end of her career Noel was the grads all-time leading scorer averaging 13.8 points per game. Noel was not only the Grads best scorer, but she was also their best defenfer. MacDonald was always assigned the opponents teams best player. In 1938 MacDonald was named Canada’s female athlete of the year by the Canadian Press. Throughout her entire career as a grad, Noel only lost 3 games, winning 57. After retiring from basketball, Noel married a hockey player named Harry Robertsonwas and later became an executive of the Canadian Amateur Basketball Association. MacDonald also coached  the University of Alberta’s women’s basketball team, and a girls high school basketball team in Alberta. In 1971 MacDonald was inducted into the Canadian Sports hall of fame.  Noel MacDonald  is still one of Canada’s greatest female basketball players of all time and has one of the most impressive basketball careers in sport history.

Overview of the Edmonton Grads By: Jessica Bannon

            In 1912 a man named John Percy Page moved from Ontario to Edmonton, Alberta to teach commercial training classes to the high school students at McDougall Commercial High School. In the same year Page also became coach of the senior girls basketball team. In that first year of competition the team won a local high school tournament and the following year were Alberta provincial champions. When it was time for this group of girls to graduate they approached Page and asked if he would coach them if they wanted to continue to play basketball. Page agreed to the job and from then on the formally named Commercial Graduates Basketball Club would become known as the Edmonton Grads.

            Ten years after it all began the Edmonton Grads played in the first Dominion of Canada’s women’s basketball championship against the London Shamrocks. The championship consisted of two games, the first which was played by the girls’ rules of 6 players per team and the second that was played by the boys’ rules of 5 players per team. The Grads won the first game and lost the second game but when the two scores were added together they came out with the victory winning 49-29. It is important to note that at this time the Grads team only consisted of 6 players so it is likely that they the lost 6 vs. 6 game simply because they tired out very quickly.

            The amazing record of the Edmonton Grads spans an era of 25 years. The team held a record of about 502 wins to only some 20 losses, averaging 96.2%! The Grads also held a record of 7 wins and only 2 losses when competing against men’s teams. The outstanding record of the Edmonton Grads did not only take place in Canada but also the US and Europe. The Grads never lost the Canadian Championship and only gave up the American Underwood Trophy when they team broke apart in 1940. In Europe the Grads beat the best teams from Paris, London, Berlin and Amsterdam.

            Although Women’s basketball was not officially an Olympic sport the Edmonton Grads attended for four years from 1937-1940. Although unrecognized at the podium the Grads swept the competition winning all 27 exhibition Olympic matches and were crowned Olympic Champions for those four years. Women’s basketball did not become an Olympic sport until many years later during the 1976 summer games hosted in Montreal, Quebec.

            As time went on Page found it particularly difficult to find competition for the Grads. The problem was that many teams around the world played under different sets of rules and so meeting for competitions became more of an argument over which rules were to be used rather than a basketball competition. The teams that did play by the same rules as the Grads had all been played and many teams did not want to continue to play the Grads knowing what kind of legacy and record they held. By 1940, the Edmonton Arena which was home of the Grads was taken over by the Royal Canadian Air Force. As the outbreak of the Second World War lingered the Grads disbanded in 1940.

            When trying to determine why the Grads were so dominant and so successful in their sport, it becomes clear that Coach Page played a very large role. Obviously the girls also had the natural ability and possessed strong leadership skills, dedication, sportsmanship and determination. Page set very high standards for his team members telling them “you must play basketball, think basketball and dream basketball.” Now some might think that a team with such a high wining percentage must have done so by cheating, being overly aggressive or bullying their opponents but Page was adamant about coaching a team with tremendous sportsmanship. He would tell his players “you’re ladies first and basketball players second and if you can’t win playing a clean game you don’t deserve to win.” These types of statements are what helped to begin to silence the critics and so called medical professionals that said physical and strenuous activity could be harmful to women. The Edmonton Grads helped to provide Canada with a symbol of the “new woman” as they had a sense of professionalism and still abided by a general feminine code of conduct. They dressed and acted like ladies, refraining from smoking, drinking, chewing gum and left the team once married.

            It was clear that the legacy of the Edmonton Grads had started early as Dr. James Naismith himself called the Grads “the finest basketball team that ever stepped out on a floor” and he did not say the finest women’s basketball team. In 1976 the Edmonton Grads’ successes were declared a National Historic Event proving that their legacy would live on for all of Canada to remember. In 1978 Parks Canada dedicated a plaque in their honor and in 1980 the entire team was inducted into the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame. Finally in 1987 there was a film made by the National Board of Canada called “Shooting Stars: The Amazing Story of the Edmonton Grads.”

            The Edmonton Grads were a basketball team that did amazing things for Canada both on and off the court. They not only won games, championships and world titles but they gave Canada a team to root for. They gave Canadians who were in a time of war a team to cheer for and support. The Grads changed the face of sport for women and continue to be a team that is idolized. The Edmonton Grads basketball team is a staple in Canadian sport history.