{"id":560,"date":"2010-12-06T16:14:48","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T16:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researchbdev.wpengine.com\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/?p=560"},"modified":"2019-03-06T19:45:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T19:45:28","slug":"interview-richard-mersereau-bowdoin-women%e2%80%99s-basketball-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/athletics\/interview-richard-mersereau-bowdoin-women%e2%80%99s-basketball-coach\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Richard Mersereau, Women’s Basketball Coach, by Jillyan Henrikson ’12"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Richard
Richard Mersereau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

What About the Female Athletes? A discussion with Richard (Dick) Mersereau, \u201869<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In this interview, Richard (Dick) Mersereau, widely known as Mers, discusses his time as a volunteer women\u2019s basketball coach from 1975 until 1981. To hear about Dick\u2019s ability to help improve the circumstances of female athletes on the basketball team during the \u201870s and early \u201880s, his responsibilities as a coach of one of the first women\u2019s sports teams at Bowdoin, and the commitment that his players displayed to the team, listen below.<\/p>\n

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Audio:<\/strong> click title(s) below to begin listening<\/p>\n

Intriguing Pieces:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Time:<\/em> Part 1, 00:02:40<\/p>\n

Quotation:<\/em> <\/strong>[In reference to beginning a career as a volunteer women\u2019s basketball coach]\u201cAs far as they [the administration] were concerned, if a group of women wanted to do basketball, well, the good news was, we would respond, we would have a team. The less good news was, you know\u2026get by as cheaply and as easily as they possibly could, which gave me, the 26-year old, an opportunity to coach, which I had never done before.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Time:<\/em> Part 1, 00:06:15<\/p>\n

Quotation:<\/em> [In reference to differences in treatment of the women and men\u2019s basketball teams]\u201cWe practiced and played my first year there, the team\u2019s second year, in Sargent gym, which was 10 feet shorter than regulation, had light coming in the windows if it was an afternoon game, and had dead spots\u2026it was a second class facility. Being a child of the \u201860s and caring about the women I was coaching, I innocently asked somewhere toward the beginning of the season, \u2018How come we\u2019re practicing and playing in Sargent gym, and the men are in Morrell gym?\u2019 And the answer came back, \u2018Well the girls aren\u2019t as good as the boys.\u2019 In other words, the girls don\u2019t deserve equal treatment because they\u2019re not as accomplished.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Time:<\/em> Part 3, 00:02:40<\/p>\n

Quotation:<\/em> [In reference to describing how important basketball was to the female players] \u201cWe, as a collective group, cared as much about what we were doing, as much as the men\u2019s team, as much as the hockey team. People tended to support one another. We\u2019d finish our game and we\u2019d go watch the hockey game cause that\u2019s what else was going on. They\u2019d announce our score. We took some pride in that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Citation:<\/strong> I, Jill Henrikson, interviewed Richard (Dick) Mersereau, Bowdoin class of 1969, in his office at the Cram Alumni House on October 21, 2011 in Brunswick Maine. We discussed Dick\u2019s time as a volunteer coach of the women\u2019s basketball team starting during the 1975-1976 season, and ending six years later after the 1980-1981 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  What About the Female Athletes? A discussion with Richard (Dick) Mersereau, \u201869   In this interview, Richard (Dick) Mersereau, widely known as Mers, discusses his time as a volunteer women\u2019s basketball coach from 1975 until 1981. To hear about Dick\u2019s ability to help improve the circumstances of female athletes on the basketball team during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,232],"tags":[235,236,234,307,233],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-athletics","category-oral-history-interview-athletics","tag-basketball","tag-coach","tag-dick-mersereau","tag-mers","tag-richard-mersereau","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/forty-years-the-history-of-women-at-bowdoin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}