The first star women’s basketball player in Polar Bear
history, Nancy Brinkman Steele helped build the foundation for one
of the nation’s finest programs. And, in the process, she was
part of a generation of female student-athletes at Bowdoin who
blazed a path of excellence for others to follow.
A tenacious rebounder and unstoppable inside scorer, Brinkman
Steele was a four-year starter for the Polar Bears and became the
school’s first-ever 1,000 point scorer (1,021) and still,
thirty years later, remains the program’s all-time leading
rebounder with 914. Her rebounding numbers break down to 12.4
caroms per game, an astonishing three rebounds more per contest
than any other player in school history. At the time of her
graduation, Brinkman Steele held virtually every career record for
scoring and rebounding and can still be found among the top ten in
eleven of those categories.
A two-time First Team All-Maine selection, Brinkman Steele led
the team to a school-record 19 victories as a senior co-captain in
1978–1979, and was named Most Valuable Player of the
Northeast Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament. Brinkman
Steele’s teams won a total of 59 games and lost just 16
during her time on the court, a record that would stand as the best
in program history for more than 20 seasons.
A high school standout at Mt. Blue, Brinkman Steele graduated
from Bowdoin with a degree in psychology and now volunteers for the
public school system in Bangor, where she lives with her husband,
Erik, also a member of the class of 1979. They have two daughters,
and her father, the late Dr. Paul Brinkman —a high school
basketball star himself— was a member of Bowdoin’s
class of 1954.
