The Bowdoin Orient

Intramural badminton has been offering a casual, somewhat competitive atmosphere since the start of the winter. It has brought together students of diverse backgrounds to de-stress and have fun in Sargent Gymnasium.  

The season will run until Spring Break, though it had its playoff tournament last week. 

Similar to most intramural programs, there are two leagues—A and B—to offer players different levels of competition. There are 13 teams between the two leagues, each with two to four members on average, and they play two games a week. 

Ethan Bevington ’19 fell into the sport this year because his friends needed an extra player. He competes for the second best team in the B league, “A Shifted Few,” which cruised into the playoffs on a three-game win streak. 

In addition to team lifts and warm-up rallying before each game, wikiHow significantly contributed to Bevington’s development as a badminton player. 

“WikiHow was surprisingly helpful and I definitely got considerably better,” said Bevington. “That was the most rewarding thing about it.” 

Intramural badminton maintains a more relaxed and laidback culture in comparison to other intramural sports, according to Aidan Coyle ’17. 

Coyle has competed in intramural hockey and soccer for the past three years, but just joined intramural badminton this year as a member of “The Flaming Birdies.” 

“In badminton you are more focused on having fun. You don’t play to win but to have fun,” said Coyle.

According to Emma Laprise ’17, who plays on the same team as Coyle, rarely do people grow up playing badminton, especially relative to sports like soccer and basketball. Therefore most players in the league are beginners, which creates an environment focused on improvement and having fun rather than winning. 

Laprise had never played an intramural sport before joining badminton and attributes her badminton skills to playing the game in her yard as a kid. 

“I don’t think I will continue badminton anywhere outside of Bowdoin, but it’s a good time to hang out with people you normally don’t see and get a little bit competitive,” said Laprise. 

The players hope that more interest in the sport will prompt the College to help replace the worn-out equipment, such as the many bent rackets and old birdies, as well as lengthen the season.

“If more people signed up for it, the duration can be longer and I’d be in favor of that,” said Bevington. 

The Bowdoin women’s basketball team (20-3, 8-2 NESCAC) hopes to carry the momentum of its eight-game win streak into the first round of the NESCAC tournament this weekend. The third-seeded Polar Bears will face off against sixth-seeded Connecticut College (16-8, 4-6 NESCAC) at home in a rematch of last weekend’s game. 

While Bowdoin is the favorite in the face-off as the upper seed and has averaged 74.9 points per game to Conn College’s 68.1, Conn has won eight of its 12 away games this season and will be looking for revenge after losing to Bowdoin 68-49 last weekend.

In the Polar Bears’ dominant performance last Saturday, Lauren Petit ’18 played particularly well, scoring nine points in addition to having two rebounds and two steals. 

“I thought [Petit] had a really solid weekend,” Head Coach Adrienne Shibles said. “She’s really stepping up for us as a leader and someone we can count on.”

Despite the win, however, Shibles believes that the team didn’t perform its best due to the emotions surrounding the senior weekend game. She believes the team has room to improve on Saturday.

“We have five phenomenal senior leaders so whenever you have a strong group like that there is a sort of propensity towards everyone wanting to do their best for the seniors,” said Shibles. “There were times when our offense didn’t flow just quite the way it normally does.”

 The team seeks to constantly improve and not remain complacent. The Camels’ leading scorer Mairead Hynes ’18 did not play last weekend yet will return in time for the first playoff game and the Polar Bears will restrategize to counter the center’s big presence.  

“Now we begin a whole new chapter in our season,” Shibles said. “We can’t just rest on our laurels on what we did before. The importance of this week is staying focused on what we can do to improve.”

This year is the eighth time in the past nine seasons the team reached 20 wins under Shibles, a clear mark of her contributions to the team’s work ethic and chemistry. 

“We look for selflessness and hard work,” Shibles said. “We look for overall character in our recruits we bring to Bowdoin, so that’s the first step—getting the right people. And from there we are pretty intentional about what we do. We talk a lot about our team values, try to emphasize them during practice and we do a lot of team bonding exercises. Those things are really responsible for our team chemistry.”

The players echo the same sentiment and stress the importance of supporting each other. 

“We always have each other’s backs on and off the court and I think that’s what really unites us. When we are on the court, we can go through anything together,” captain Marle Curle ’17 said. “Moving forward, that becomes even more important as the season gets longer and the games get more important, it is important to have one another’s best interests at heart.” 

The team began the season with a record of 8-0 before losing a nail-biting 46-43 game against Tufts (23-1, 9-1 NESCAC) in January. The game was not only the closest matchup the Polar Bears have had all season, but was the smallest margin the Jumbos—No. 3 in the nation—have won by this year.

According to Curle, it was strong senior leadership that pushed the team to get back on their feet and keep moving forward after the loss. Shibles agrees that the seniors’ presence on the team has been indispensable.

“I think the only reason we are here is the five seniors we have on the team,” Shibles said. “They have just exemplified the values of our program and contributed to the larger Bowdoin community in amazing ways.”

Besides strong team chemistry and leadership, the team, at 16 players, has the numbers to outlast its opponents.  

“That’s a huge strength because the depth allows us to run on teams the whole game, to pressure teams the whole game,” said captain Rachel Norton ’17. “Most teams don’t play as many players as we do so at the point in the game when they get tired we have another layer of players to throw at them.”

While the team’s strong performance this season bodes well for this weekend, the players enter the playoffs taking it one game at a time. 

“At this point nothing is guaranteed,” said Norton. “You have the game in front of you and you have to win to move on, so we are definitely not looking past Connecticut College coming here Saturday. Especially as a senior, this is my last go around and I’m super excited and don’t want this to end. I just want to keep playing as long as possible.”

Women’s basketball legend, Chamique Holdsclaw—decorated with three consecutive NCAA championship titles and an Olympic gold medal—visited campus on February 1 to share with students her decades-long struggle and journey with mental illness in Kresge Auditorium. 

Part of the Bowdoin Athletics’ Leadership and Empowerment through Athletics Principles (LEAP) Initiative, the event screened her documentary “Mind | Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw” and was followed by a panel discussion that included the Director of Counseling Services and Wellness Programs Bernie Hershberger, Director of the Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity Kate Stern and the Executive Director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Maine Jenna Mehnert. 

The event attempted to inform students who suffer from mental illnesses about the support-systems on campus and encourage students with friends suffering from mental illnesses to continue to speak up about the available resources. Holdsclaw stressed in her film and panel that it is easy to forget that suffering is universal and accepting yourself for your flaws, beauty and your struggles takes an incredible level of courage, but it will feel like a world of burden is taken off you.

“People ask about my experience winning championships and Olympics but I can’t probably remember because I was chasing the next thing,” Holdsclaw said. “Honestly life after basketball has been pretty darn amazing. I guess I’m not using basketball to hide it now. I’ve accepted it. I’m finally living in my truth. I’m not changing or anything. I know life is not perfect but I’m finally living. Now I’m appreciating the people, appreciating the situation.” 

Holdsclaw discussed how depression can take many insidious forms—obvious as well as subtle—which emphasizes how important it is for people to be more aware and conscious of what others may experience.

“Imagine it this way: to go to bed every night and wake up in cold sweats. The guilt was killing me. It was on my mind 24/7,” Holdsclaw said. “When I went to see therapists I was on the edge of my seat with my mind racing 100 miles per hour.”

The panel traced one of the causes of depression to the unrealistic expectations that society constantly feeds people through various forms, such as social media, and the fact that we tend to unconsciously accept societal norms. 

“It was really great to have one of the best female athletes in history come and tell her story that I’m sure most people didn’t even know,” Moctar Niang ’19, a member of the men’s soccer team, said. “It just goes to show that often people are not educated on the matter and my personal takeaway from this is the question of what more things can be done to raise awareness on the severity of mental illness.”

The panel also discussed treating depression and other forms of mental illness, which are tricky to treat, according to Hershberger.

“When you look at depression you also have to look at a whole lot of practices like therapy, prescriptions, acupuncture, yoga, massage, nutrition and exercise,” he said. “Really you have to look at the whole person and see how we can recover from this. You don’t know which one is going to actually make the difference so you have to keep trying.”

The panel agreed that having solid and dependable friends and family who are willing to listen and really care is the single most important factor in counteracting and relieving this pain. 

“There are girls on my team who have similar experiences and looking at it from a little bit of distant perspective I feel like I should’ve done something, which is the important part,” said Paula Petit-Molina ’20, a member of the field hockey team. 

“You are never alone. I used to think I’m the only one who is going through this but you are never alone,” said Holdsclaw. “Even at your weakest moments there will be someone who will return your call.”

Last month, Gabriel Siwady ’19 represented Honduras in the 13th International Swimming Federation (FINA) World Swimming Championships in Windsor, Canada and recorded the fifth best time among college students in the 1500-meter freestyle. 

The international short-course (25 meters) championship is held every two years and hosts some of the world’s best swimmers from more than 150 countries, including Olympians Lilly King and Tom Shields of the United States, as well as Katinka Hosszu of Hungary and Chad Le Clos of South Africa.

Siwady has competed at junior international championships as a part of the Honduras national team since he was 15. This was his first time competing at the senior level.

Eight swimmers represented Honduras in different events, all of whom Siwady previously met back home or at other international championships. 

“Honduras is a very weak country in athletics, we don’t have the best swimmers in the world,” he said. “We don’t excel that much, but I was able to still perform well, despite that.”

He participated in two events: the 1500-meter freestyle and the 200-meter butterfly. In his stronger event, the 1500, he beat his personal record with a time of 16:32.62.

“If you train hard and you prepare well, in the moment you can accomplish your goals if you think about them everyday,” Siwady said. 

Though Siwady has been swimming competitively since he was five, the international stage can still be daunting. However, he embraced the high stakes and elite competition.

“I like that [the meet] has all the elaborate introductions,” Siwady said. “They play music when you are about to step on the starting blocks. I just liked seeing people from other countries, seeing fast Olympic swimmers who broke world records.”

Siwady believes his experience competing at the junior international level mentally prepared him to feel comfortable and succeed when competing at the senior level.  

“My first time [was in 2013], so I wasn’t used to competing at a global stage so I was little more nervous,” he said. “I had prepared well and performed well in that one too, but the whole experience was very new to me. This time around I really knew what I was doing, where I had to go and who I needed to talk to before my race.”

Siwady plans to continue representing Honduras during his time at Bowdoin and hopes to compete on an even more competitive stage. 

“I’m thinking about participating at the Olympics,” he said. “It depends on how I am with jobs after college, but it is a good objective to have.” 

For over 12 years, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bath/Brunswick and the McKeen Center for the Common Good have partnered to run “Bears and Cubs,” a one-on-one peer mentor program for local children that works to create lasting friendships through Bowdoin activities such as swimming at the LeRoy Greason Pool and trick-or-treating at the college houses.

Twenty-five kids from ages six to 15 are partnered with Bowdoin students, known as cubs and bears, respectively.

“Our job is just to be a friend. You bring good attitude ... you are not a babysitter, you are just there to listen and be a guiding figure,” said Jack Weiss ’17. 

The program, led by Weiss and Julie Randolph ’17, meets every other Sunday for two hours. The McKeen Center also runs other school and non-school based mentoring programs such as Falcon Friends and Bear Buddies.

“The goal of this program is to build a relationship with the child and get involved in the community and give back,” said Randolph. “It’s important for the kids to have a bigger mentor to look upward to.” 

Lindsey Reed, the program manager, said that Big Brothers Big Sisters has had a strong partnership with the McKeen Center.

“This program was originally created to provide children who were on waitlist for the community programs to get involved with our agency and have an experience of having a positive role model,” she said.

Recently, the program had to turn away kids because there were not enough volunteer mentors.

In response, the group is recruiting volunteers by introducing activities that appeal to both college students and the younger mentees.

“We are trying to come up with new games to make the local kids have more fun but also to make students more excited to sign up,” Weiss said. 

This year, the group plans to participate in new events such as bowling and an ice cream party.

Because the program takes place on campus, students make use of spaces like Smith Union and the College Houses.  

“We are so grateful for our connection with the college,” Reed said. “I think it’s a good experience for our littles to come on campus and get exposed to the culture and the experience of the students there—it’s very unique.”

The experience means as much to the mentors as it does to the mentees according to Weiss. Some students have been paired with the same mentee for four years and have developed true friendships.

“I think lot of bears will say that this program makes you remember what it was like to just run around in a gym in a game that has no rules,” Weiss said. “We have a ball; [the kids run] around and somehow it morphs into a game and you realize you are having as much fun because this is what you did as a kid. It’s really a stress relief for me as it is to them.”

Katie BacallApollo and Argos10 ½ and 13 years oldBeaglesApollo and Argos have been convincing their owner, Allen Moss, to walk them around the campus for more than a decade. They love to walk on the fields behind Farley Field House and solicit pats from the practicing players.

Katie BacallGordie2 years old“He’s named after the hockey player, Gordie Howe.”“What does he like to do?”“He loves to chase tennis balls. If he was off leash he would love to chase squirrels”“What does he like to eat?”“Pretty much any dog chow. Biscuits. He loves biscuits.”“Any favorite flavor?”“Beef”“What’s his hobby?”“Swimming.”

Katie BacallJulietteGolden doodle1 ½ years old“Walks and squirrels!” are what make Juliette happy. To keep her happy, her owner brings her to campus almost every day. While her owner’s favorite spot is the main Quad, Juliette will go wherever the squirrels are.

Katie BacallBetBorder CollieBet was first spotted running next to her bike-riding owner as they sped past a tour group. “One of her jobs is to steal the show from the people who are being taken around and introduced to Bowdoin, and so like we go by and they are all looking at her because of how boring can it be when you are being told about the buildings or something,” her owner said. When she is not distracting visitors, Bet enjoys chasing after squirrels. “She has caught a couple squirrels and it’s unclear as to whether she killed them or not… but her job is more herding and not killing.”

Harry JungHannah​3 ½ years old“Do you come here often?”“Everyday!”“What does she like to eat?”“Everything!”The best part about Hannah? “She’s always smiling!”

Katie BacallRaffi3 years oldPortuguese water dogRaffi’s owner commented on the numerous dog that often walk on campus. “There’s really a dog community. I don’t think there are exceptions to all of us being so grateful we can use this space and I think we are pretty respectful of it ... It’s really a great thing, we know the dogs’ names better than the people’s!”One of the best parts about the dog community is that the dogs can play with each other. For example, Raffi has a best friend, Mandy. “He plays with her almost everyday and has since he was 6 months old and they’re a little bit like Mr. and Mrs., they just are so glad to see each other everyday and race around and wrestle and carry on and then they get tired and go lie in the shade and then... off they go again!”

Though the men’s golf team’s sixth-place finish in the NESCAC Championship Qualifiers was not strong enough to put them through to the championship this spring, first year Thomas Dunleavy’s fourth place overall finish earned him a spot on the All-NESCAC First Team. 

Dunleavy is the first Bowdoin student to make the team since Jeff Cutter ’09 in 2008. With such success in only his first year, Dunleavy said he looks forward to what he and the team can accomplish in the future.

“We had a good weekend,” said Dunleavy. “We wanted to crack the top four, which would mean we would move on to the NESCAC championship, but it was a fun weekend for all of us and for me personally successful.”

At the end of the first day of the qualifier, Dunleavy was tied for second, just one stroke behind the leader. Another strong performance the following day helped him finish with a score of 144, with only five strokes separating him and first place. 

“I look forward to making the NESCAC and National Championship in the years ahead,” Dunleavy said. “It’s going to be tough, but I think it’s doable.” 

The men’s golf team has shown a lot of potential this season. On October 8, the team won its first Colby Bates Bowdoin Championship since 2013. The team outshot both Bates and Colby by a margin of 21 strokes, a decisive victory as last year only 12 strokes separated all three teams.

Captain Thomas Spagnola ’17 led the team with a score of 75, followed by Dunleavy with 77 and captain Martin Bernard ’17 with 78 to put together a solid outing for the Polar Bears. 

While the individual accomplishments are important, the players are just as focused on their cohesive performance. Dunleavy credits the captains for creating the supportive team chemistry on and off the course.

“At times golf feels like an individual sport because at the base of it that’s what it is,” Dunleavy said. “There can be no communication or guidance between the two players on the course … but we get around this by supporting each other when things go good or bad.”

The Polar Bears closed out their season with a sixth place finish at the Southern Maine Invitational on October 9-10. Spagnola was the top performer for the Polar Bears, tying for 13th overall. After the first day of play, Bowdoin was in third, but dropped to sixth overall by the end of the tournament as only nine strokes separated the third through eighth-place teams in a highly competitive pool.