Brewer High School

Beatrice L. Park, 1940, Basketball

Beatrice L. Park, Class of 1940, was an outstanding girls’ basketball player for Brewer High School for three years.  She was captain of the basketball team her senior year and was the star of the 1939 and 1940 teams which dominated girls’ basketball in Eastern Maine with a combined record of 21 wins, 2 loses and one tie.  Her 1940 team was undefeated until the final game losing to Lawrence 30-28.  As reported in the 1940 Trident, “Captain Park’s smooth passing and one-hand shooting was the delight of almost every spectator. Through graduation Brewer High School will lose one of the best girl athletes who ever has or will ever attend this school.” 

If you look at the time and setting for girls’ sports in the late 1930’s-early 1940’s, Park was extraordinary.  She was participating during the middle phase of the evolution of the sport of basketball for females.  In the late 1800’s it began with a concern that girls were too delicate to play full court, and it was not good to subject themselves to undue pressure. In the late 30’s early 40’s girls’ basketball consisted of six player teams-known as six on six. There were two half courts with three guards defending against 3 forwards in each half court.  No one could cross the center line, only forwards could shoot and score, and only two dribbles per player were allowed.  Girls’ basketball was in transition.  In a recent interview with Park’s friend and classmate, Ethel Andrews (age 97 today), one gets a taste of what it was really like for a female athlete at that time.  “WE DIDN’T AMOUNT TO MUCH!  We also had a softball team but had to make it up on our own.”  With that as a backdrop, consider how extraordinary Bea Park was when the Bangor Daily News reported in a sports column on Jan 13, 1940 that… “The basketball player who attracts the most comment (all favorable) when Brewer hoop teams play isn’t Lyford, Goodrich, Baudanza, Cosseboom or Houston of (Coach) Dogherty’s starting lineup but a member of the girls’ team- Beatrice Park…Beatrice can shoot well enough and pass well enough to make a good many of the boys’ teams in this section…When one of Dogherty’s boys makes an extra sensational shot now, the fans say: ‘Boy, he shoots like Beatrice!‘ … as she turns in some mighty fancy tossing.”  It is significant to add that the male physical education teacher at the time, Coach Dogherty (2022 Brewer Athletic Hall of Fame Inductee) was very supportive of girls’ basketball and offered an intramural opportunity beginning in 1935 to all the girls at Brewer in which Park participated her freshman year.  

At Brewer High, Park was an ace foul shooter and received the shooting medal during her sophomore and junior year, plus “the Medal” at the University of Maine Play Day by beating a Fairfield opponent with 23 out of 25 baskets. Park brought her skills to coaching by taking on the Brewer freshmen girls’ team her senior year. She lettered in basketball all three years which was a rare feat for a girl in those times. Additionally, she played softball for her first three years of high school (softball was not offered her senior year).

In the Trident, it was forecast that after high school she would be “coaching girls’ basketball at Brewer High School”.  That was not to be. Park continued her education and basketball prowess at the Bangor Maine School of Commerce (today known as Husson University) which included her being selected as Co-Captain of the women’s basketball team under the coaching of Clara Swan (2014 Brewer Athletic Hall of Fame Inductee).  Her 1941 School of Commerce team lost only one game that season.  In 1974, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Law from Husson College. In 1986, she was inducted into the Husson College Sport’s Hall of Fame.  

Park began as the assistant Penobscot County Clerk in 1948 and rose to be the Chief County Clerk retiring in 1977. Beatrice Park passed away in 2016 at the age of 93. Today, parity in girls’/women’s sports is still emerging. The rules and opportunities are light years beyond the environment in which Bea Park played. We can only imagine the skills she would have honed and the honors she would have received in today’s setting!  

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE INDUCTION PRESENTATION VIDEO OF BEATRICE PARK

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH ON BEHALF OF BEATRICE PARK

A.D. David Utterback and Crystal Roy (Beatrice Park's Great-Niece)