Following the 1903 recognition of men’s basketball as an official BC sport, a women’s BC athletic association was formed in the autumn of 1904 with the goal of establishing a women’s basketball team. The BC women’s athletic association again formed a basketball club in 1913.

In 1916 the women’s basketball team made their first uniforms with fabric that they purchased from B. Ney’s department store in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The crimson and gold handmade uniforms consisted of mobcaps, blouses, bloomers and cravats.

The earliest women’s basketball teams and basketball clubs played against other Bridgewater College women, local high school teams and affiliated Daleville College. They did not play other colleges until the 1920s.

BC women’s basketball teams have included junior varsity and varsity sections, award-winning players, and a number of beloved and accomplished coaches. Laura Mapp, often shown in these archival images, coached the team from 1961 to 1996. A notable recent retiree is Jean Willi, who spent 11 years as assistant coach and served as head coach from 1996 to 2017.

A fuller history of BC basketball is available within the Francis Wayland College history, Bridgewater College: The First Hundred Years, 1880 – 1980.

The gallery contains digitized photographs selected for general interest; it does not duplicate in the entirety of Bridgewater College archival photographs.

Provisions of Use: Personal and non-profit use only. No cropping or altering of images in any way. Credit each image's source as "The Robert R. Newlen '75 and John C. Bradford Special Collections/Bridgewater College Digital Commons". Consider including a hyperlink to the image hosted on the Bridgewater College Digital Commons.