Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
The Greatest Female Athlete of All Time?
Delores Baugher
PE 110
Professor Gimbert
Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias was arguably the best female athlete of all time. Larry Schwartz, in an article written for ESPN.com, tells us not only was Zaharias a gifted golfer, she excelled at many sports. She seemed to do it all – track and field, basketball, bowling, roller skating, tennis, swimming, boxing, and more. She loved athletics and competition as a child and never lost her passion for sports. She was a world record setter and a winning Olympian. If someone asked her if there was anything she didn’t play she said, “Yeah. Dolls.” In an age when female athletes were considered odd, even freakish, Babe Zaharias ignored society’s opinion and followed her dream – “to be the greatest athlete who ever lived.” Born in 1911 to parents that emigrated from Norway to Port Arthur, Texas, Babe claimed she earned her nickname (after Babe Ruth) for hitting 5 home runs in one baseball game as a child (Biography.com). The large Didrikson family struggled financially and Babe worked at a variety of jobs to help the family, including sewing gunny sacks for a penny apiece. Her sewing skills were another talent she possessed. She actually won a championship at the Texas State Fair for making a dress (Biography.com).
Her athletic skills were honed at home by hard work, playing ‘boys’ games and working out on a homemade weight lifting apparatus her father built. It consisted of a broomstick and flat irons (Biography.com).
In 1930, at the age of 15, Melvin J. McCombs, coach of a national championship girls’ basketball team, spotted HHerBabe as she played forward for her high school basketball team. He recruited her to play for the Employers Casualty Company in Dallas. To protect her amateur status, she was hired by the firm as a secretary, but her real job was to play ball. That team, the Golden Cyclones, went on to win the national
The Greatest Female Athlete of All Time?
Delores Baugher
PE 110
Professor Gimbert
Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias was arguably the best female athlete of all time. Larry Schwartz, in an article written for ESPN.com, tells us not only was Zaharias a gifted golfer, she excelled at many sports. She seemed to do it all – track and field, basketball, bowling, roller skating, tennis, swimming, boxing, and more. She loved athletics and competition as a child and never lost her passion for sports. She was a world record setter and a winning Olympian. If someone asked her if there was anything she didn’t play she said, “Yeah. Dolls.” In an age when female athletes were considered odd, even freakish, Babe Zaharias ignored society’s opinion and followed her dream – “to be the greatest athlete who ever lived.” Born in 1911 to parents that emigrated from Norway to Port Arthur, Texas, Babe claimed she earned her nickname (after Babe Ruth) for hitting 5 home runs in one baseball game as a child (Biography.com). The large Didrikson family struggled financially and Babe worked at a variety of jobs to help the family, including sewing gunny sacks for a penny apiece. Her sewing skills were another talent she possessed. She actually won a championship at the Texas State Fair for making a dress (Biography.com).
Her athletic skills were honed at home by hard work, playing ‘boys’ games and working out on a homemade weight lifting apparatus her father built. It consisted of a broomstick and flat irons (Biography.com).
In 1930, at the age of 15, Melvin J. McCombs, coach of a national championship girls’ basketball team, spotted HHerBabe as she played forward for her high school basketball team. He recruited her to play for the Employers Casualty Company in Dallas. To protect her amateur status, she was hired by the firm as a secretary, but her real job was to play ball. That team, the Golden Cyclones, went on to win the national
Cited: Schwartz, Larry “Didrikson was a woman ahead of her time.” ESPN.com. Babe Didrikson Zaharias Biography.com