Marie Curtin

From Hoopedia

Marie Curtin (b. 13 June 1906, Chicago – d. 9 December 1995), an amateur and semi-professional basketball women player of the 1920s and 1930s. Curtin was the mainstay of the famous Taylor Trunks, ranked among the most famous women's teams in the history of women's basketball. She was one of the founding members of the team in 1921, when they were the Lake View Community Girls and continued into Taylor Trunks semi-professional status into the early 1930s to their demise in 1934.

Curtin was born and raised in Chicago, and began playing competitive basketball while still attending Waller High School, on Chicago's north side. Around her sophomore year, in the fall of 1921, she began playing with the Lake View Community Girls, who were newly formed as a competitive team from girls who were playing in the Lake View Community Center. She continued to play for them while attending two years of school at the American College of Physicians, followed by four years at DePaul University for a degree in languages.

Curtin played as reserve forward and then starting forward as the Lake View Community Girls became the Tri-Chis in the 1925-26 season, and the following year the Taylor Trunk Tri-Chis. For the Trunks in the 1926-27 season Curtin playing as a starting forward, helped defeat the London, Ontario, team 28-6 in the Broadway Armory, in Chicago.

The following year, the team name shortened to simply the Taylor Trunks, Curtin spelled Trunk star, Violet Krubaeck as center in defeating the Cleveland Aces for the national championship at the Broadway Armory, 17-11. In repeating as national champs in 1929, beating the Aces, 16-8, at the Broadway Armory, Curtin was back in her usual forward position.

By 1931, Curtin was working as a playground instructor at McLauren Municipal Playground while finishing her senior year at DePaul University on top of her continued starting position with the Taylor Trunks. This made her the subject of a rare feature article in the Chicago Tribune in January of 1931.

Curtin ended her career with the Taylor Trunks in its last season, 1933-34, when the team disabanded. In March of 1934, she was competing in the American Tournament, and the Central AAU tournament,with the Empire Sportsverein.

Curtin appeared to end her remarkable playing career in 1934 after more than a dozen years of competition. For 25 years she worked in the Chicago Park District. In the last twenty years of her life she lived in McHenry, Illinois. Her legacy was that of one of the great women basketball players during the golden years of women amateur competition during the 1920s and 1930s.