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If you haven’t heard the story of Iran’s “Blue Girl,” it’s not your fault. It has been a blip in a news cycle dominated by Brexit, Antonio Brown and the Global Climate Strike that many within the Bowdoin community participated in.
Portland is known for its hip food scene, proximity to nature and historical port, but one of the city’s greatest hidden gems is a national-championship caliber professional sports team with an empowering story and a fan base that’s growing larger every year.
Bowdoin football’s season-opening loss to Hamilton was a game of almosts. The offense almost clicked. The defense almost kept the game within reach. The Polar Bears almost came out on top. But almost is still almost, and the Polar Bears still fell, 37-24, in their first game under the direction of head coach BJ Hammer and his staff.
Although Bowdoin athletics is most visible on game day, the department stretches well beyond the courts and fields. With a student-athlete advisory committee and a faculty representative to the NCAA, the department is incorporating voices outside the administration.
OFFENSE IS THE BEST DEFENSE The field hockey team cruised to a dominant victory at the University of Southern Maine on Tuesday. The entire Bowdoin defense put up a career day, not allowing a single shot over all four quarters.
Bowdoin volleyball began its season last weekend with a hiccup, dropping two of three matches at the Wesleyan Invitational. The team opened its home schedule on Tuesday, beating the University of Southern Maine three sets to one to bring its record even at 2-2.
When Logan Russell ’22 stepped onto the soccer pitch on Monday evening, it wasn’t at Pickard Field. In fact, it wasn’t even in the U.S.. Rather, Russell strode out of the tunnel in front of thousands of fans at Thomas Robinson Stadium in Nassau, the Bahamas, to make his debut for the Bahamian men’s national soccer team.
BEARS, BEATS, BOBCAT-TLESTAR GALACTICA The field hockey team held on to a 1-0 victory over Bates this past Wednesday, improving to 2-0 in NESCAC play. On a stormy afternoon, the Polar Bears dealt with poor conditions and sloshed through a rain-soaked turf field all game.
On September 7, the Bowdoin varsity women’s rugby team opened their season with an emphatic 76-0 thumping of Roger Williams University. For the team, one of the College’s most successful teams over the past few decades, these landslide victories have been somewhat commonplace.
Coming off the best season in program history last spring, the sailing team rode its momentum into the opening weekend of its fall season last week, sailing in five regattas. One team placed third in the Harmon Trophy at Maine Maritime Academy, earning qualifying spots for the Match Race Championships and the Penobscot Bay Open.
August marked three years since Colin Kaepernick chose to take a stand by taking a knee against racial injustice. As is the case with most matters of race in this country, few were willing to take him to task on the issues that he intended to bring to light.
POLAR BEARS WEATHER THE STORM The field hockey team opened its campaign with a win against the University of New England (UNE) in Biddeford this past Wednesday. Emma Stevens ’20 opened her scoring account with two goals against the Nor’easters, and Elle Brine ’20 added two assists in a convincing 4-0 victory.
The Bowdoin College Department of Athletics is beginning the fall season with a wide array of fresh faces on the coaching staff of 11 teams. In an email to the Orient, Ashmead White Director of Athletics Tim Ryan conveyed his excitement about what the new hires could contribute to the Department.
Football has returned to Brunswick, and that means only one thing. It’s Hammer Time. Let’s all get up to speed. After using the first three quarters of last season to extend its losing streak to a record-setting 24 games, J.B.
This Saturday, the men’s soccer team will face its longtime Achilles’ heel, Amherst. Bowdoin has not beaten Amherst since 2014, when the Polar Bears beat the Mammoths in penalty kicks in the NESCAC championship. Before this, Bowdoin’s last win against Amherst was in 2010.
This past weekend, the women’s tennis team (13-4, NESCAC 7-2) wrapped up a successful regular season with a win over Williams (6-9, NESCAC 3-5). The Polar Bears will meet the Ephs again this afternoon at 4:30 p.m.
After picking up two more NESCAC wins last weekend, the third-ranked men’s tennis team (15-3, 7-2 NESCAC) is heading to Middlebury today to kick off the NESCAC Championship against Williams (8-7, NESCAC 5-3). As the Polar Bears prepare for tournament play, captain Grant Urken ’19 said the championship is more of a race than the regular season, changing the team’s mentality.
The Bowdoin Cycling Club is launching a new initiative to add mountain biking trips to its weekly offerings, but members are still working to come up with the funds to buy mountain bikes they will need to grow.
Last Saturday, the women’s lacrosse team (9-7, NESCAC 5-5) fell to Amherst (12-4, NESCAC 6-4) in the quarterfinals of the NESCAC tournament, by a score of 12-9. However, the team hopes its winning season overall will be enough to win an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
With so many festivities planned for Ivies Weekend, it is easy for sporting events to fall through the cracks. But because of the baseball diamond’s proximity to Farley Field House, it has become a tradition for students to frequent the team’s games between headliner acts.
Despite being one of the smallest varsity sports teams at Bowdoin, softball (23-10, 5-4 NESCAC) has continued to gain momentum over its spring season as players look forward to this Saturday’s home game at Pickard Field and the NESCAC championships, beginning the first weekend in May.
On Saturday, May 4, more than a hundred triathletes will gather at Farley Field House for the Polar Bear Triathlon. An annual event, the triathlon attracts both experienced athletes and newcomers to the sport. Head Swim Coach Brad Burnham helped design the race 17 years ago.
At a glance, Maurice Butler ’74 and Amir Parker ’19 have much in common. It was a passion for the sport that drew both athletes to walk onto the College’s football program. But the team Butler encountered, with just one African American player, was another world compared to Parker’s experience 40 years later.
Every week, over 150 elementary school students descend on Farley Field House to jump in the Greason Pool as part of the Harpswell Community School program. The program focuses on teaching students from Harpswell to swim and preparing them for potential careers as lobstermen.
After an indoor season riddled with injuries, the track and field teams found their momentum last weekend in the Silfen Invitational at Connecticut College. The men’s team placed fourth out of 24 teams, while the women’s team came in an impressive second out of 20 teams.
The women’s rugby team (4-1) will host its seventh annual Polar Bear 7s tournament tomorrow. Earlier this month, the team competed in the NEC 7s tournament where they defeated UNH (34-10), University of Maine (19-15) and Wesleyan (32-15).
Anyone who follows Bowdoin football’s social media account has probably asked some variation of this question in the past few months. Even a cursory glance over the team’s Instagram page makes it clear that the Polar Bears’ new coaching staff, led by Head Coach B.J.
The Bowdoin women’s tennis team (9-2, 4-1 NESCAC) had not beaten Amherst in a record 13 years until a 5-4 victory over the third-ranked Mammoths last weekend ended the streak. The win comes in the middle of a successful season thus far, including some come-from-behind victories on the four, five and six courts.
Nearing the home stretch of its regular season, the men’s lacrosse team (6-6, 2-5 NESCAC) sits at .500, but has struggled in the NESCAC, where it is currently in ninth place. All is not lost, though—the team sits just one game behind the final NESCAC playoff seed with three conference games left to play.
When Joan Benoit Samuelson ’79 returned to campus after winning the Boston Marathon the spring of her senior year, she received a standing ovation in Thorne Hall, then the senior center. Sweaty and tired from her 2:35:15 finish, she soon learned that much of campus had watched her on television as she crossed the finish line in a Bowdoin singlet.
This past weekend, the Bowdoin Sailing team competed in the Team Races of New England Championship at Connecticut College, finishing fourth overall. For the first time in program history, the coed team qualified for the Team Race Nationals which will be held in Newport, Rhode Island on May 25-27.
After returning to New England from spring training in California with new players and skills, the fifth-ranked men’s tennis team (8-1, 2-0 NESCAC) defeated the seventh-ranked Wesleyan Cardinals (9-2, 2-1 NESCAC) 6-3 last weekend. In California, the Polar Bears were able to compete against strong teams while solidifying their dynamics and individual roles, ultimately finishing with a 7-1 record and their first NESCAC win of the year against Trinity.
On a humid August night in 1970, Maurice “Moe” Butler ’74 dropped his trunk at the steps of Smith Union as he headed to dinner. A day early for first-year orientation, Butler could not access his dorm and, with $20 left in his pocket, looked for a patch of floor to spend the night.
It’s been a tough first half of the season for the men’s baseball team. The Polar Bears (0-14-1) currently have no wins under their belt and have averaged just 2.67 runs per game. “The start we got out to wasn’t what we expected,” Head Coach Mike Connolly said.
The women’s water polo team is gearing up for a championship tournament at MIT on April 13 and 14 after winning both of its home games last Sunday against Coast Guard Academy and Bates. To prepare for the season, captain Raquel Santizo ’19 said the women’s team scrimmages against men from the fall coed team.
Since opening the season with a decisive 12-7 victory over Connecticut College (3-7, 0-6 NESCAC), the women’s lacrosse team’s season has taken a turn for the indecisive. After dropping four of its next five games, the team has rebounded over the past two weeks, recording three straight victories, including two conference victories against Bates (7-4, 3-3 NESCAC) and Trinity (7-2, 3-2 NESCAC), to enter April with a 5-4 record overall, 3-3 in NESCAC play.
Perfect is the enemy of good. Or, in the case of Bowdoin women’s basketball, of exceptional. It’s difficult to look back on a 31-2 season and feel somehow disappointed. But it’s not impossible. In a sense, we, the fans, are spoiled.
Without the fanfare of other athletic organizations on campus, the curling team has quietly grown into one of the College’s most successful club sports programs. On March 10, the team earned an eighth-place overall finish at the USA College Curling Championship held at Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, Mass.
Returning from two weeks of intense training in Minneola, Fla., the Bowdoin softball team is ready for spring to travel north with them. After beginning its season in Minneola with five consecutive victories, the team returned to Brunswick with an overall record of 11-5.
Over spring break, All-American Sterling Dixon ’19 competed in the NCAA DIII Swimming & Diving Championship in Greensboro, N.C., where she placed second overall in the 200-yard Butterfly, breaking school and personal records in the event.
When Mitchell Ryan ’19 was a sophomore at East Lyme High School, he didn’t know whether his school had a pool. Six years later, Ryan has been named an All-American diver in the NCAA DIII Swimming and Diving Championships.
The women’s basketball team fell 81-67 to Thomas More (33-0) in the NCAA DIII championship game in Salem, Virginia, Saturday night. It is the second straight year Bowdoin has fallen just short of the title, after the Polar Bears lost to Amherst in the championship game last year.
Six hundred ninety-eight miles from Brunswick, the women’s basketball team is making a home for itself on one of the nation’s largest stages. For the second consecutive year, Bowdoin advanced to the NCAA Division III championship game on Friday evening after finishing off the St.
The men’s swimming and diving team placed fourth last weekend at the NESCAC Championship meet. Scoring a total 1,019.5 points, the team exceeded 1,000 points for the first time in more than 40 years. Despite the team’s record-setting effort, Bowdoin was outpaced by rapidly-improving league competition.
Last weekend, the women’s and men’s indoor track and field teams competed in the New England Division III Championships, placing fifth out of 31 teams and sixteenth out of 23 teams, respectively. Captain Julia O’Rourke ’19 broke the program record in the 5000-meter run while Morgen Gallagher ’20 set a new 60-meter sprint record.
Strange things happen when you’re very high up. You lose perspective. Things get a little blurry. Vertigo sets in. And if this past week of women’s basketball has been one thing, it has been vertiginous. After walking all over Middlebury in Saturday’s semifinal, the Polar Bears suffered their first loss of the season, falling to third-ranked Tufts, 69–75, in the finals of the NESCAC tournament on Sunday.
Nearly every evening for the past two weeks, the men’s baseball team has begun practice in Farley Field House at 9 p.m., not leaving until 11:30 or midnight. The team works on the skills that they can indoors, just feet away from their diamond, which is currently under several layers of snow and ice.
Women’s basketball suffered its first loss of the season on Sunday, falling to the Tufts Jumbos 69–75 in the finals of the NESCAC tournament. Tufts, coming off a last-minute upset of second-ranked Amherst in yesterday afternoon’s semifinal, claimed its third NESACAC title in program history, its second since 2015, and secured an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.
The top-seeded women’s basketball team (26-0, 11-0 NESCAC) finished off fifth-seeded Middlebury (16-7, 5-6 NESCAC) in the semifinals of the NESCAC tournament on Saturday afternoon to advance to tomorrow’s final game. The Polar Bears have not advanced to the NESCAC final since 2015, when they fell to Tufts, and have not won the tournament since 2009, Head Coach Adrienne Shibles’s first year at the program.
The women’s basketball team secured its 25th consecutive win with a 96-75 defeat of Connecticut College in the NESCAC quarterfinals last Saturday. Now the team will face No. 5-seed Middlebury. The game promises to be a tight matchup given that the Polar Bears’ closest game of the season was their four-point win over the Panthers on February 1.
What makes prospective students who visit Bowdoin’s snow- and ice-covered campus in the middle of winter want to come here? Similarly, what makes a prospective softball player want to be a Polar Bear—faced with indoor practices in Farley or out on the turf lacrosse field throughout February and March, and even shoveling the softball field in April?
Sidney J. Watson Arena is festooned with an extensive collection of banners celebrating the accomplishments of Bowdoin hockey teams past. However, the year 2018-2019 will not be appearing on any of these decorations. For the first time in 18 years, both the Bowdoin men’s and women’s hockey teams failed to reach the NESCAC playoffs.
Last weekend the women’s swimming and diving team competed in the NESCAC Championship at Wesleyan. The Polar Bears placed seventh, failing to score as many points as in years past after challenges throughout the season. “I think we’re missing some of the depth [we’ve had in years past],” said Head Coach Brad Burnham.
The curling team ended its regular season in Utica last weekend, finishing third out of 24 competitors. Now, the top five members will continue to the national competition in Wayland, Massachusetts over spring break, where the team is seeded seventh.
Over the course of the alpine skiing club’s nearly 70-year history, it has gone from club to varsity sport and back to club again. This season, both the men’s and the women’s teams are at the top of their leagues, with the men ranked first and the women tied for first with UMaine Farmington.
Textbook. Flawless. Ideal. Unrivaled. Masterly. Exemplary. Superlative. Pick your adjective. But one descriptor will attach itself to Bowdoin women’s basketball regular season regardless of what thesaurus you pick up: perfect. The final weekend of the women’s basketball season was a one-two-punch that dispelled any doubt—if there was any still hanging around—about the Polar Bears’ on-court dominance.
As the postseason approaches, the women’s hockey team is facing a lot of pressure to keep its season alive. With a losing record for the season, the Polar Bears (3-16-1, NESCAC 2-10) need to defeat both Connecticut College (9-8-2, NESCAC 5-5-2) and Trinity (8-9-3, NESCAC 5-4-3) in the next two weeks to be able to compete in the NESCAC Championships.
After its recent sixth-place performance at the NESCAC championships last weekend, the Bowdoin men’s squash team (6-8) will travel to New Haven, Connecticut for the CSA Class C National Championships hosted by Yale University. Though it’s a step up from previous competition, Head Coach Tomas Fortson says the team’s goals this season lie in the intangibles.
Growing up in Paris, Maine, Assistant Nordic Ski Coach Leslie Bancroft Krichko never imagined herself representing the United States on the Olympic team once, let alone twice. But the new Bowdoin coach did exactly that, competing on behalf of the United States in 1980 and 1988.
Last Saturday, a group of 12 Bowdoin students went to six-mile-long Pleasant Pond in Litchfield, Maine to go ice fishing. This is no Outing Club or official club trip; just a bunch of students who love to fish.
The men’s basketball team (12-7, NESCAC 2-4) will face tough competition as it enters the final few games of its season. Currently sitting in ninth place in the NESCAC standings, Bowdoin must move into the top eight to advance to the postseason.
For Bowdoin women’s basketball (20-0, NESCAC 6-0), the story of Saturday’s 65-56 victory over the Amherst Mammoths (17-2, NESCAC 4-1) began 315 days earlier in Rochester, Minnesota. It was there, in the Mayo Civic Center, that the undefeated Mammoths finished off the Polar Bears, 65-45, to earn their second consecutive Division III National Championship title.
If you noticed something different at the Bowdoin-Colby hockey game last weekend, it was probably a live rendition of “Sweet Caroline” or “The Middle” between periods, provided by the new Bowdoin Pep Band. The Pep Band was officially charted by Student Activities last fall, but it is not altogether new to Bowdoin sports culture.
Although many student-athletes at Bowdoin are fortunate enough to take advantage of acres of playing fields and Farley Field House, one team prefers grass fields for grazing instead of playing soccer. The Bowdoin equestrian team has embarked on a new season, bringing horseback riding to beginners and advanced riders alike.
Last weekend, Bowdoin’s swim and dive teams dominated the competition against two NESCAC rivals, with both the men’s and women’s teams beating Wesleyan and Trinity in two dual meets. The Polar Bears have had a particularly successful season so far, winning meets against Bates and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and hope to keep the momentum going into the NESCAC finals on February 14.
Last weekend, the Nordic Ski team made history. The warmth of the shining sun and cheering crowd of peer supporters led to Bowdoin’s first ever Chummy Broomhall Cup—essentially the Maine state Nordic championship. After placing two men and two women in the top three, including the two first-place spots, the Polar Bears asserted their dominance within the state.
With his introduction as the 30th head coach of Bowdoin football (1-8), B.J. Hammer finds himself in a familiar spot: a hole. For the second time in four years, Hammer, a native of Carmel, Indiana, is taking over a struggling football program.
Last weekend in a matchup against Colby in Morrell Gymnasium, Abby Kelly ’19 became the 15th person in Bowdoin women’s basketball history to reach 1,000 career points. The team celebrated this milestone along with its 72-59 win over the Mules for the program’s 17th consecutive win to begin the season.
This Saturday the men’s hockey team (6-9-2, 3-7-1 NESCAC) will battle rival Colby (6-7-3, 3-6-2 NESCAC). It is the 212th meeting of the teams. The rivalry kicked off in 1922, when the Mules beat the Polar Bears 2-1 in the teams’ first ever matchup.
The women’s indoor track and field team started the season strong, earning first and second place in its first two past home invitationals, respectively. On January 12, the Polar Bears scored 176 points, far surpassing WPI (146) in second place.
As Bowdoin students return to the campus tundra post winter break, many look to nearby ski slopes hoping to take advantage of the weather. Bowdoin’s coastal location offers access to three of New England’s premier ski resorts—Sugarloaf, Sunday River and Loon Mountain—are all within 120 miles.
In the last decade, more out transgender and non-binary students have chosen to participate in college athletics across the country. In the last five years, Bowdoin has supported at least three athletes during their transitions and as they navigated joining new teams.
For two days last weekend, Bowdoin hosted the annual Maine State Meet for the men’s and women’s swimming teams. Seven college teams gathered this year, including three new teams—the University of New England, Saint Joseph’s College and Maine Maritime Academy, all of which joined since their traditional meet was cancelled.
Over Thanksgiving break, the Nordic ski team traveled to Forêt Montmorency in Canada to begin their training for the season. With exceptionally heavy snowfall this year, this location is an excellent place to kick off the team’s training each year, giving an opportunity to strengthen team spirit and practice skills for the upcoming season.
With five games under its belt (2-3), the men’s basketball team is in full swing with high expectations for the season. Coming off a 83-70 loss against Colby (5-1) yesterday, the team will face Pine Manor (1-6) on Saturday in Morell Gym at 1 p.m.
J.B. Wells will not return as head coach of the football team, the College announced in a November 15 press release. Wells, who led the Polar Bears to a 1-8 record in his fourth season as head coach, will finish his career with an overall record of 3-31, having led the team through the longest losing streak in program history of 24 games between November of 2015 and November of 2018.
Sitting in the Lubin Family Squash Center, you can hear the pop of a squash ball hitting the wall and the sharp turn of sneaker on wood. The glass spans the room, encasing the seven squash courts on which the Bowdoin men’s and women’s teams both practice.
After ending the last two seasons with losses to Middlebury in the semifinals of the NESCAC tournament last year, the women’s ice hockey team (0-4, 0-2 NESCAC) is set its sights on the NESCAC championship this season.
Ever since last year’s momentous NCAA tournament run ended in a second place finish, the Bowdoin women’s basketball team has been looking towards the start of its season as the beginning of its journey to avenge its loss against Amherst in the national championship game.
The Bowdoin cross country teams hosted the NCAA regional meet on Saturday. The men’s team placed seventh and women’s secured ninth overall, and men’s captain Sean MacDonald ’19, women’s captain Julia O’Rourke ’19 and rookie Delaney Bullock ’22 received at-large bids to compete in the national championship this weekend in Wisconsin.
Leaving behind a disappointing 2017-18 season, the Bowdoin men’s ice hockey team will open the season with home games against Williams and Middlebury tonight and tomorrow afternoon, respectively. The team is feeling optimistic, says Head Coach, Jamie Dumont.
He may be taking off his jersey and helmet, but Derek Whitmore isn’t leaving the rink anytime soon. Travelling the world to play ice hockey, leaving his family at a young age to compete and working through injury after injury, rep after rep, practice after practice, Whitmore’s love for the game never faltered.
All animals are sad after intercourse, the old saying goes. And following their climactic victory over Bates, one got the sense that the Polar Bears were, too. The day after victory is a sadly neglected moment in history: what did David do the day after bringing down Goliath?
Last weekend, the Bowdoin volleyball team traveled down to Wellesley, Mass. to compete in the NCAA Division III Volleyball Championships. The Polar Bears took down Worcester State (23-11) and Johns Hopkins (22-8) to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where they fell to regional hosts Babson (26-9) and ended their season with a program-best 29-2 record.
The volleyball team took home its third NESCAC title in program history last weekend, extending its win streak to 17. Even though they gave up the second set to Amherst in the championship match, the Polar Bears came back to dominate the court as they have all season and put away the win in four sets.
Coming off a successful 2017-2018 season, the swimming and diving team officially started its practices with timed trials, preparing for the season’s first meet in two weeks. Last year, the women’s team placed fifth in the NESCAC Swimming and Diving Championship, with a program-record points total, and the men secured fourth for a program-best finish at the meet.
This is the story of the best football game in Bowdoin history. November 9, 1963: For nearly 70 years, the Polar Bears had faced off against their archrival, the University of Maine Black Bears, in the culminating game of the season.
The women’s rugby team is continuing its tradition of excellence despite last year’s move from the NESCAC conference in USA Rugby to the more competitive National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) League. “We had been in the USA rugby pathway … and we had been in that pathway for many, many years,” said Head Coach MaryBeth Mathews.
Not many Bowdoin graduates get the chance to play a professional sport. Even fewer get the opportunity to compete against NBA stars while recruited to play basketball for an Israeli professional team. Yet in October, Lucas Hausman ’16 took to the court at the Staples Center in Los Angeles for an NBA preseason game.
In Rhode Island last weekend, three fencers competed in the fencing club’s first tournament of the year. Casey Edmonds-Estes ’22 finished in the top eight, beating two experienced fencers and earning a rank E. In fencing, each competitor begins their career labelled U, meaning they are an unranked fencer.
Last weekend, the Bowdoin women’s field hockey team (11-5, 6-4 NESCAC) saw its season come to an early end at the hands of Williams (12-4, NESCAC 7-3), with a 3-2 loss in the NESCAC quarterfinal. This latest premature exit from the NESCAC tournament is the third consecutive year the Polar Bears have bowed out of the competition before reaching the finals.
Last Saturday morning, the members of the Bowdoin men’s (9-5-2, 5-3-2 NESCAC) and women’s (7-7-2, 3-6-1 NESCAC) soccer teams donned their jerseys and laced up their cleats for what was likely both teams’ final game of the season.
The NESCAC Volleyball Championship will be coming to Bowdoin this weekend for the first time since 2015. With a current record of 24-1, the team has put forward its best regular season ever and looks to continue that success in the postseason this year.
The women’s volleyball team (22-1, 8-0 NESCAC) takes on its biggest NESCAC competitor, Wesleyan University (15-3, 8-0 NESCAC) tonight at 8 p.m. The two teams are both undefeated in the NESCAC. They are battling for first place in the league and the rights to host the championships next week.
It was midsummer and Franklin Taylor ’19 was at a crossroads. Back home in Oak Park, an urban suburb of Chicago, Ill., he stared at the blinking cursor on his computer screen. It hovered over his email inbox, pointing to the question that had been needling him all summer long: would he don jersey number 86 in the fall?
After a rocky start to the season, the men’s soccer team (9-3-2, 5-2-2 NESCAC) has hit its stride and is currently entering the postseason with the momentum of a 7-1-2 record in its last 10 matches.
Few people have a life story more interesting or unexpected than Bowdoin Equipment Manager Chap Nelson’s—or “Chappy” as he’s commonly known. From dreams of playing major league baseball in Florida, to becoming Colby’s assistant baseball coach while still a college student himself to his current freelance work as a professional scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, there is only one thing as big as Chappy’s personality: his network of friends.
On the door to Coach J.B. Wells’ office is a poster emblazoned with the likeness of quarterback phenom Peyton Manning and the following quotation: “I wouldn’t have a single touchdown without someone to catch it, and someone to block for it, and someone to create the play, and someone to call it, and someone to celebrate it with.” Still mired in a 23-game losing streak, the longest in the program’s history, the Polar Bears have learned the truth of Manning’s wisdom in a literal way.
On Monday evening, a group of about 50 student-athletes came together with coaches, staff and peers for the tenth annual Winning Together: Allies in Athletics event. The program was organized by the Athletic Department and the Center for Sexuality, Women and Gender (SWAG) and looks to address the challenges facing LGBTQ athletes at Bowdoin.
A liberal arts education is tailored to fit each student’s unique interests and career path, but as Jake Stenquist ’19 realized, there was neither a major nor minor at Bowdoin that would fully prepare him for his experience in the Marines’ Officer Candidate School (OCS).
