Interview with Charlotte West # DGB-V-D-2005-009 Interview Date: March 13, 2005 Interviewer: Ellyn Bartges COPYRIGHT The following material can be used for educational and other non-commercial purposes without the written permission of either Ellyn Bartges (Interviewer) or the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. “Fair use” criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. These materials are not to be deposited in other repositories, nor used for resale or commercial purposes without the authorization from the Audio-Visual Curator at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 112 N. 6th Street, Springfield, Illinois 62701. Telephone (217) 785-7955 A Note to the Reader This transcript is based on an interview recorded by Ellyn Bartges. Readers are reminded that the interview of record is the original video or audio file, and are encouraged to listen to portions of the original recording to get a better sense of the interviewee's personality and state of mind. The interview has been transcribed in near- verbatim format, then edited for clarity and readability, and reviewed by the interviewee. For many interviews, the ALPL Oral History Program retains substantial files with further information about the interviewee and the interview itself. Please contact us for information about accessing these materials. Bartges: It's March thirteenth, and I am in Estero, Florida. We're talking with Dr. Charlotte West. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today. I'm going to start quickly. Can I have your name? Oh, I gave your name, never mind. Where'd you go to high school? West: St. Petersburg High School. Bartges: Here in Florida? West: Yes. Just north of Sarasota. Bartges: Did you play sports in high school? West: Yes. Bartges: What kind? West: I played volleyball, basketball, softball, and was a swimmer. Charlotte West Interview# DGB-V-D-2005-009 Bartges: These sports were organized? West: Yes. Bartges: Were they play days or GAA [Girls' Athletic Association] days, interscholastic? West: Interscholastic, low-level but interscholastic. Bartges: Was there one level of varsity team, or was there just one team and it wasn't really labeled as varsity? West: No, there was the varsity and then there was a second team. Bartges: Your coaches—were they PE teachers? West: Yes. Bartges: Were they paid, do you know? West: I don't think they got any kind of a supplement. I think they did it out of the kindness of their heart and the love of the sport. Bartges: Were there assistant coaches? West: No, but a couple of them would have open tryouts, say for volleyball, and we'd pick a team. And I can't remember back—probably one coached the first team, and one coached the second team. Bartges: You mentioned tryouts. I'm particularly interested in basketball, but in any of the sports—so you had tryouts in high school? West: We did tryouts. Some people made the team and some didn't, and then some were on the first team and some were on the second team. Bartges: Do you have any idea about how many kids tried out? West: Oh, I can remember trying out in volleyball. And I'll give kind of a little humorous story; why I remember that is they had three courts and after some drills and everything, they would move people up. And it was obvious that if you got moved up to the top court, that they were considering you as the varsity. And I had a sister two years older than me, both were adopted. And she had no skill and no interest and would not—would do anything to not 2 Charlotte West Interview# DGB-V-D-2005-009 even take PE [Physical Education]. So I was moving up, and they said, "Name?" And I said, "West." And just nonchalantly she said, "Not any relation to Dorothy West?" And I kind of grimaced and said, "Yes, she is my sister." Well, she went and told the other gym teacher, and they were laughing. And so I remember going home and saying, "It was an embarrassment." (laughter) Because a friend of mine, Mary Jane, her older sister was good. And I said, "They asked Bumpus 'Is Jackie your sister?' 'Yes.' That was fine. But no, they laughed when—" (laughter) So I can remember that—moving up. Bartges: How big was your high school? West: Large, five hundred-plus in the graduating class. Bartges: You played other schools, obviously? West: Yes, we played Largo, Tampa, Clearwater. Bartges: How did you travel? West: Mamas and daddies, (laughs) mostly mamas. Bartges: I'm going to deal with basketball here. West: Well, I will say, too, on occasion we also had school buses. Bartges: Okay. West: So I played nine, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and so we did have buses. I can remember some bus rides. Bartges: Do you remember if your coach drove? West: No, the coach did not drive. Bartges: You played six-player basketball or was it five? West: No, it was six. Bartges: Was it with a rover 1? 1 In the 1950s and 1960s women's basketball was often played with two stationary guards, two stationary forwards, and two "rovers" who were allowed to run the entire court. http://www.ncweb.com/biz/sherock/history.html 3 Charlotte West Interview# DGB-V-D-2005-009 West: Not at that time, but when I was playing high school basketball, we had a city team that was commercially sponsored, and the gym teachers asked me to play on that commercial team. So we played, and we played six players. But I think it was the year I graduated or the year after, we played in two state tournaments adjacent weekends. And we played three-on-three one weekend, and we played the roving player—I was a rover the other weekend. And it was interesting because we won the tournament with the rover like fifty-eight to fifty-nine. I remember the score because I've told this story a lot as basketball has evolved. And when we played the rover, it was—I mean, when we played three-on-three, we scored over a hundred points. Bartges: Oh my. (laughter) When you played three-on-three, were you a guard or forward? West: I was a forward, but I would play guard as needed depending on the strategy, but I was predominantly a forward. Bartges: Was your coach in high school from Florida, do you know? West: My coach graduated from Florida State and taught at St. Pete [St. Petersburg]. Excellent coach and an excellent, excellent athlete. So I had good training. Bartges: When did you practice in high school? West: We practiced in the afternoon, because I remember we didn't go back at night. Now you're going to ask me what were the boys doing. Bartges: (laughs) West: That was a long time ago. (laughs) Bartges: I know. West: But I know when I was swimming, we had rotation—three different schools using the same pool—and we'd have to swim at suppertime and in the evening; we rotated around. When we practiced volleyball, there was no problem because that was football, and now it's basketball. We did practice at night. The boys had the primetime in the afternoon, and we did practice at night. I don't think we practiced every night. 4 Charlotte West Interview# DGB-V-D-2005-009 Bartges: That was my next question, how many times a week did you practice? You may not remember, that's okay. Did you ever practice on Saturdays, or before school? West: I know for sure we never practiced before school. We practiced in the evening. And I'm sure there were some Saturdays when we practiced. Bartges: Did you ever have class teams or was it just like you mentioned, a varsity— West: It was varsity. Bartges: Okay. West: It was varsity. Bartges: What kind of uniforms did you have? West: Our teacher made them. She was an excellent seamstress. Bartges: Renaissance woman. West: Yes. Bartges: (laughs) West: Florida State had asked for some pictures, like when we got to college, and they were going back and trying to do some history of that club and all. And as I got into some of those old pictures, I had a picture of me on the high school basketball team with these uniforms, we all had these uniforms. And I thought when I looked at that how that lady made all those uniforms (laugh) for each one of us, and they were well done. Bartges: What did you practice in? West: Just whatever. Bartges: Shorts? West: Shorts. Shorts and shirts. Bartges: But not your PE [physical education] uniforms? West: No. 5 Charlotte West Interview# DGB-V-D-2005-009 Bartges: Okay. What was your coach's name? West: Anna Geise. Bartges: G-i-s-e? West: G-e-i-s-e. Bartges: Okay. When did you graduate from high school? West: In 1950. Bartges: What's the highest level of education you have? West: Ph.D. Bartges: Where'd you go to college, starting with your bachelor's degree? West: Bachelor's at Florida State, and I have a degree in mathematics and physical education. Bartges: It's a dual major? West: Well, I started out in math because there was still kind of a taboo about women in PE back then who weren't real bright. (laughs) I started out in math and finished with a double major, four years of college with—I had one half- hour elective to get that double major in.