Hoops set the stage for athletics boom at Bemidji State

Not much in Bemidji predates Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. But the Bemidji State men’s basketball program can claim seniority.

Of the 25 intercollegiate sports BSU has ever assembled, none came sooner than the school’s “cagers.” In fact, the hoops team is even older than the sports section of the Bemidji Daily Pioneer.

That made the Beavers front-page news when the program formed.

“The Bemidji State Teachers college is preparing to take its place with other state teachers colleges with regard to men’s athletics and this year’s basketball season is to see the initial effort along the lines of intercollegiate athletic competition,” the Pioneer read on Dec. 12, 1921. “A squad of ten men has been working under the tutelage of F.P. Wirth, history teacher, for the past month.”

F.P. Wirth may have taught history for a living, but he also created it on the hardwood. Wirth coached for two seasons, going 12-15 overall but more importantly establishing a program that raised the forefathers of Bemidji State athletics.

“(Wirth) was considerably handicapped at the start of the season by having only a few male students from whom to select a basketball quintet,” the Pioneer reported. “… It is felt that the introduction of athletics for the male students of the college will tend to increase the male attendance.”

Programs popped up all over Bemidji State Teachers College for the next dozen years, starting with men’s track and field in 1924 and football in 1926. Men’s tennis was the final program born in the 1920s, while baseball followed in 1933.

Bemidji State’s most successful program -- men’s ice hockey -- came in 1947 (then again in 1959 after a nine-season hiatus) and has won 13 national championships since.

The first women’s sport to enter the fold was basketball in 1967, coached by the great Ruth Howe. Ever since, the men’s and women’s basketball teams have operated independently but often alongside one another.

Eleven of the university’s sports are now defunct, some lasting as long as men’s track (88 seasons) or as little as men’s and women’s cross country skiing (six seasons).

But the men’s basketball team is still standing and the first to hit 100. The program has racked up 1,040 wins along the way, and no team has repped the green and white longer.

The time-honored colors were selected during a school assembly in February 1920. After a vote on the colors resulted in a tie, a student named Cyrillus Freeman rose from her seat and declared two to be most appropriate.

“As we sat here discussing this question, I happened to glance out the window,” she said, according to school lore. “The sight that met my eyes was fresh, green pines silhouetted against pure white snow. What could be more appropriate than green and white?”