10 Things You May Not Know About Babe Didrikson Zaharias - History in the Headlines 10 Things You May Not Know About Babe Didrikson Zaharias June 24, 2016 By Evan Andrews Share this: 10 Things You May Not Know About Babe Didrikson Zaharias Author 10 Things You May Not Know About Babe Didrikson Zaharias URL Google Mildred Didrikson Zaharias—better known by the nickname “Babe”—was born on June 26, 1911, in Port Arthur, Texas. A gifted athlete from a young age, she became one of history’s first female sports stars by mastering everything from basketball and track and field to softball, tennis and even bowling. She also broke records as a golfer, winning an unprecedented 82 amateur and professional tournaments before her untimely death at age 45. Explore 10 fascinating facts about the multi-sport titan that the Associated Press once named the “Woman Athlete of the Half Century.” 1. She dropped out of high school to become an athlete. Babe Didrikson Zaharias wearing training clothes.

(Credit: New York Times Co./Getty Images) Didrikson was born into a Norwegian immigrant family on the Gulf Coast of Texas, and earned the nickname “Babe” after her mother’s habit of calling her “Min Bebe.” After spending her youth beating the neighborhood boys in pickup sports games, she became a standout performer on her high school’s basketball, baseball, volleyball, tennis, golf and swimming teams. At age 18, her skills caught the eye of the Employers Casualty Insurance Company, which convinced her to quit school and play for its women’s basketball team in the Amateur Athletic Union. It wasn’t long before the brash and boastful Babe had staked a claim as the league’s top forward. She led her team in scoring during her debut game, and was selected as an all-American for three straight years from 1930 to 1932. 2. Didrikson won a team track meet singlehandedly. Babe Zaharias, born Mildred Ella Didriksen, demonstrates her hurdling technique. (Credit: Three Lions/Getty Images) Didrikson’s first taste of national celebrity came in 1932, when she took part in the U.S.

women’s track and field championships as the lone member of the Employers Casualty team. While the other teams each fielded a dozen or more athletes, Babe singlehandedly competed in eight events ranging from the hurdles and the broad jump to the shot put and the discus throw, often finishing one heat and then immediately rushing to the starting line of another. Despite the obvious disadvantages of being a “one-girl track team,” she won five events and amassed enough points to claim the championship. Journalists hailed the victory as one of the greatest accomplishments in amateur sports history. “Implausible is the adjective that best befits the Babe,” wrote the New York Times. “As far as sports are concerned, she had the golden touch of Midas.” 3. She set multiple records at the Olympics. Mildred Babe Didrikson of the USA throws the javelin to win the gold medal during the Women’s Track and Field javelin event at the 1932 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California. (Credit: Getty Images) Following her breakthrough at the track and field nationals, Didrikson participated in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics in three events: the javelin, the 80-meter hurdles and the high jump.

She easily took gold in the javelin with an Olympic record throw of 143 feet, four inches, and set a new world record in the hurdles by crossing the finish line in just 11.7 seconds. Didrikson could have completed a clean sweep by winning the high jump, but she was relegated to a silver medal after the judges ruled that her head had illegally cleared the bar before her body during her final jump—a rule that no longer exists today. She still left Los Angeles with one silver medal and two gold, having set Olympic or world records in every event in which she competed. According to Didrikson biographer Don Van Natta, Jr., she remains the only female Olympian to have won individual medals in running, jumping and throwing contests. 4. Didrikson worked as a vaudeville performer. Athlete “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias. (Credit: Underwood Archives/Getty Images) Didrikson emerged from the Los Angeles Olympics as a celebrity sportswoman, but a lack of opportunities for female athletes forced her to seek employment on the vaudeville circuit.

Billing herself as the “World’s Greatest Woman Athlete,” she toured Chicago and New York with a variety show that included singing, harmonica playing and sports-related stunts such as hitting plastic golf balls into the crowd. During an era when most women were making mere cents an hour, the wildly popular performances earned her as much as $1,200 per week. 5. She endured frequent prejudice in the media. Babe Didrikson working out in the gym. (Credit: NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images) Though often lauded in the press, Didrikson also faced jabs from reporters who believed women had no place in athletics. “It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring,” one sports columnist wrote in the New York World-Telegram. Other reporters demeaned her for being unladylike or claimed that she only excelled at sports because she couldn’t attract attention from men. A few even suggested that she might be a man in disguise. Didrikson was reportedly hurt by the sexism she encountered, but she usually responded with cool confidence and humor.

When once asked how she managed to produce monster 260-yard tee shots in golf, she replied, “I just loosen my girdle and let the ball have it.” 6. Didrikson was the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event. Babe Didrikson driving off the tee in a golf tournament. (Credit: Underwood Archives/Getty Images) In 1934, Didrikson turned her attention to playing competitive golf, which she described as a “game of coordination, rhythm and grace.” Four years later, she made history by entering the all-male Los Angeles Open, the first event on the Professional Golfers’ Association calendar. Didrikson struggled at the tournament and missed the 36-hole cut, but her appearance marked the first time that a woman had competed in a PGA Tour event. The feat wouldn’t be repeated until 2003, when golfer Annika Sorenstam won a sponsor’s exemption for a PGA tournament in Texas. 7. She married a professional wrestler. American athlete Mildred ‘Babe’ Didrikson and American wrestler George Zaharias pose together after announcing their engagement.

(Credit: APA/Getty Images) In 1938, Didrikson met George Zaharias, a 235-pound pro wrestler who performed as one of the sport’s most famous villains under the nickname “The Crying Greek from Cripple Creek.” The two struck up an instant attraction after playing together at the Los Angeles Open—Babe was supposedly impressed that George could out-drive her off the tee—and they were married that December. George would go on to serve as Didrikson’s business manager, trainer and promoter for the rest of her career. 8. Didrikson once won 14 golf tournaments in a row. Babe Didrikson Zaharias with the Birtish Women’s Amateur Championship Cup which left England for the first time. (Credit: Walter Engels/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images) Didrikson’s outsized ego often grated on her fellow golfers—she was fond of informing them that they were all playing for second—but she backed up her boasts with results. Between 1946 and 1947, she won 14 golf tournaments in a row, often annihilating her opponents in match play.

The run also included a victory at the British Women’s Amateur Championship, which had never been won by an American. To this day, Didrikson’s 14-tournament winning streak remains the longest in golf history. 9. She was a founding member of the LPGA. Winner Babe Didrikson (R) and runner-up Patty Berg (L) at the All-American golf championship at the Tam O’Shanter Country Club, Chicago, Illinois, 1950. (Credit: Underwood Archives/Getty Images) Didrikson dominated women’s golf in the late-1940s and eventually turned pro, but she was hampered by a meager tournament schedule that included only a half-dozen events per year. In 1950, with the help of corporate sponsors, she and twelve other female golfers formed a new pro tour called the Ladies Professional Golf Association, or LPGA. Didrikson caused a controversy within the LPGA by demanding a special appearance fee of $1,000 per tournament, but her celebrity helped grow the fledgling tour, which went on to triple its prize money in its first five years. 10.

Didrikson won her last major golf tournament while suffering from terminal cancer. Babe Didrikson Zaharias at the All-American tournament at Chicago’s Tam-O’Shanter Country Club, Chicago, Illinois, 1951. (Credit: Underwood Archives/Getty Images) In 1953, Didrikson was diagnosed with colon cancer and forced to undergo emergency surgery and a colostomy. It was reported that she would never play golf again, but she returned to her winning ways a little more than a year later, when she trounced the field at the 1954 U.S. Women’s Open by a record margin of 12 strokes. The comeback saw Didrikson voted the Associated Press’ “Female Athlete of the Year” for the sixth time in her career. Her illness continued to intensify, however, and she later passed away on September 27, 1956, at the age of 45.

Tags Education & Resources - National Women's History Museum - NWHM National Women's History Museum Home > Education & Resources > Biographies > Biography Index > Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956) Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias was one of America’s foremost female athletes and is particularly well-known for breaking ground in women’s golf. She was born Mildred Ella Didrecksen on June 26, 1911 in Port Arthur, Texas. She was the sixth of seven children born to a pair of Norwegian immigrants. (It should be noted however that in Didrikson’s autobiography she says she was born in 1914; all other sources, including her tombstone, cite the year as 1911. She also changed the spelling of her last name to Didrikson.) In 1915 her family moved to Beaumont and young Mildred began her amateur career in sports. Once she started playing baseball with the neighborhood boys and hitting home runs, she picked up the nickname “Babe,” after Babe Ruth.

She was an athletic prodigy from childhood; there wasn’t a sport Babe wouldn’t try and excel in. She was especially good at basketball; however, Beaumont High School thought she was too small to play and only let her join the team starting her junior year. Babe’s moves on the court caught the eye of Colonel Melvin J. McCombs, the manager of the athletic program at Employers Casualty Company in Dallas. She joined the company team in 1929 and played until 1932. She won the honor of ‘All American’ every year. Ever since Babe read about the 1928 Olympics in her father’s newspapers, she decided that she would one day compete in the Olympics in track and field. Every day she would train with her sister, jumping hedges in the neighborhood. During the qualifying trials she made the cut in five events, but women were only allowed to participate in three. At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, 21 year-old Babe Didrikson won two gold medals and one silver. She received a gold medal for the javelin throw, setting a new world record at 143 feet.

The next day she set a new world record (breaking her own) of 11.7 seconds in the 80-meter hurdles to win another gold medal. After a much-debated tie for first in the high-jump (at 5’5”), the judges ruled that her technique was illegal and disqualified her; Didrikson ended up with the silver medal. Didrikson is probably best known for her achievements in golf. She won 82 tournaments over her golfing career. She took up golf in 1933 and was considered a professional because she gave advertising endorsements. At the 1938 Los Angeles Open Babe met her future husband George Zaharias, a wrestler and part-time actor from Colorado. The couple had a speedy courtship: they announced their engagement on July 22, 1938 and were married on December 23 of the same year. Zaharias eventually became his wife’s manager. Four months after they married, George surprised her by whisking her away to Australia by way of Hawaii. The vacation was well-deserved, but typical of the power couple, he lined up an exhibition for her to play golf in Australia. Babe’s sparkling reputation was international.

In 1943 Didrikson was awarded amateur status as a golfer, which enabled her to play in a wider range of tournaments. Between 1943 and 1947 (when she turned professional again) she won 17 amateur tournaments in a row. It was during this time that she became the first woman to win the British Women’s Amateur Golf Tournament. In the 1940s women’s professional involvement in golf was relatively limited. George Zaharias suggested that they create a professional women’s tournament circuit. Ever the dynamic team, George worked to find financial backers while Babe worked with fellow golfer Patty Berg to co-found the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1949. Berg was the president the first year, after which Didrikson held the position for the rest of her life. In 1950 the Associated Press voted Babe Didrikson Woman Athlete of the Half-Century. In 1953 Didrikson was diagnosed with cancer and underwent a colostomy. With characteristic resilience, she returned to enter the Tam O’Shanter “All-American” golf tournament a mere three months after the surgery.

This was an important tournament for her because it was a chance to prove to spectators (and to herself) that she still had what it took to play professional golf. She rejoined the tour in the following January but it wasn’t until the Serbin Women’s Open in February that she started winning tournaments again. She won her last tournament, the 1955 Peach Blossom Open, but was forced to pack up her clubs because of crippling pain. Didrikson did not yet know that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. After battling her disease for over three years, Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias passed away on September 27, 1956 at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas. "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias | WBUR News "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias By Melissa Block Share Melissa Block talks with golfer Marilynn Smith about Mildred Didrikson Zaharias, better known as Babe. In 1945, she became the first woman to play in a PGA event. In fact, Zaharias played in three tournaments with the men that year -- without much fanfare from the media.

Babe was an Olympic athlete, winning several medals in 1932. She went on to become a legend in golf. +Join the discussion Babe Didrikson Bio, Stats, and Results | Olympics at Sports-Reference.com Medals: 2 Gold, 1 Silver (3 Total) Biography One of seven children of Norwegian immigrants, Babe Didrikson Zaharias is often considered the greatest female athlete of all-time, and is often in the discussion of the greatest female golfer ever. Babe played almost every sport but became famous to the American sporting public with her feats in track & field in 1932. Her track career was brief but brilliant and her performance at the 1932 AAU meet remains among the greatest in sporting history. In the space of 2½ hours she competed in eight events, winning four of them outright and finishing equal first in another. As the only representative of her club, Employers Casualty AA of Dallas, she won the national team championship with the powerful Illinois Women's AC, who fielded more than 20 athletes, in second place. At the end of the day the score was Didrikson - 30 points, Illinois - 22 points.

At the 1932 Olympics, Babe opened her Olympic campaign by winning the javelin on her first throw with a new Olympic record, she then equalled the world record (11.8) in the heats of the 80 meter hurdles and the following day brought the record down to 11.7 as she took her second gold medal. Finally she placed second in the high jump after a controversial jump-off with Jean Shiley. The judges ruled that Didrikson had dived over the bar although she had been using the same style throughout the competition. Prior to the Games the Babe had already been voted an all-American in basketball for three years and, as a 17-year-old, she twice broke the world javelin record in 1930. Babe forfeited her amateur status after the Olympics by allowing her name to be used in an automobile advertisement, so she then turned her attention to golf and was easily the greatest woman golfer of her era.

In 1934 Babe won the first tournament she entered and, until cancer ended her career in 1955, she won multiple major titles, including the 1946 US Women's Amateur and the 1947 British Ladies' Amateur (the first American to ever win both of those championships). She also played in three men's PGA Tour events in 1945, making all three cuts at the Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Tucson Opens. From 1948 to 1951, she was the leading money winner on the LPGA circuit, during the first four years of its existence, and she won 41 LPGA sanctioned events in her career. This included 10 major professional titles, the US Open in 1948, 1950, and 1954, the Western Open in 1940, 1944-45, and 1950, and the Titleholders in 1947, 1950, and 1952.

Better known professionally under her married name of Babe Zaharias, she contracted colon cancer in 1953 but recovered from major surgery to win the 1954 US Open, and two tournaments in 1955, before dying from cancer at the age of 44. Babe was considered the most popular golfer of her day, male or female, and it has been said her popularity in golf is rivaled only by Arnold Palmer's. Her awards are almost too numerous to mention. In 1950 she was voted the Greatest Female Athlete of the First Half of the Century, and she was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press six times. In 1999 the Associated Press voted her as Woman Athlete of the 20th Century, while Sports Illustrated placed her second behind the heptathlete [Jackie Joyner-Kersee]. She is a member of the LPGA Hall of Fame and the World Golf Hall of Fame. In 1957 she was posthumously given the Bob Jones Award by the US Golf Association, in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf.

Personal Bests: 80H – 11.7 (1932); HJ – 1.65 (1932); JT – 43.69 (1932). Results ESPN.com: Didrikson was a woman ahead of her time Didrikson was a woman ahead of her time By Larry Schwartz Special to ESPN.com The first to prove a girl could be a stud athlete, Babe Didrikson began as a muscular phenom who mastered many sports and ended as a brilliant golfer. An exuberant tomboy whose life was athletics, she was accomplished in just about every sport - basketball, track, golf, baseball, tennis, swimming, diving, boxing, volleyball, handball, bowling, billiards, skating and cycling. When asked if there was anything she didn't play, she said, "Yeah, dolls." As a teenager she knew her life's ambition. "My goal was to be the greatest athlete who ever lived," she said. While others dispute her story, Didrikson said that she was nicknamed Babe early in her teens by boys awed at her long-distance homers.

As she grew older, there seemed to be more Ty Cobb than Ruth in her, a dark rage that made losing intolerable. Like for Cobb, animosity seemed to be the fuel that stoked Babe's competitive fire. Less than two years after seeing her first track meet, Babe Didrikson qualified in five events for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. The Associated Press voted her the Greatest Female Athlete of the first half of the 20th century. The wire service also voted her Female Athlete of the Year six times - once for her track dominance and five times for her golfing prowess. Babe performed at a time when female athletes were considered freakish at best, downright unacceptable at worst. For most of her life she was the antithesis of femininity; not until her later years did she dress and act less manly. "She was not a feminist, not a militant, not a strategist launching campaigns against sexual liberation," wrote William Johnson and Nancy Williamson in Whatta-Gal!: The Babe Didrikson Story. "She was an athlete and her body was her most valuable possession." Some writers condemned her for not being feminine.

"It would be much better if she and her ilk stayed at home, got themselves prettied up and waited for the phone to ring," Joe Williams wrote in the New York World-Telegram. Others were enthralled by the 5-foot-5 Babe, who was muscular but never heavy. "She is beyond all belief until you see her perform," famed sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote. "Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen." While she excelled in competition, she often alienated teammates and competitors. She frequently acted like a self-centered prima donna, a boastful person who constantly sought attention. Although she became somewhat less arrogant over the years, she still remained flamboyant and cocky - and often overbearing. Babe didn't seem to have much interest in men until she was swept off her feet when she was paired with George Zaharis at the 1938 Los Angeles Open. Zaharis was a gregarious man, a 235-pound wrestler who as a stock villain was making a fortune as the Weeping Greek from Cripple Creek.

They married 11 months later and Babe would change her name to Babe Didrikson Zaharias. He would become her manager and advisor, but in the later years of their marriage, problems arose as Zaharias lost influence with his wife. Babe spent more time with good friend Betty Dodd, a young golfer who was a natural athlete and had no interest in looking feminine. She often stayed at the Zaharis' home in Tampa. As an amateur golfer, Babe won an amazing 13 consecutive tournaments during 1946. The next year, she was the first American to win the British Amateur. Among her 55 tournament victories were three U.S. Women's Opens. With Zaharias, Patty Berg and Fred Corcoran, she founded the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1949. At birth in Port Arthur, Texas, she was Mildred Ella Didriksen (she would later change the spelling of her name). Though Babe wrote in her autobiography that she was born on June 26, 1914, it seems as if the correct year is 1911, which is what it says on her tombstone and on a baptismal certificate.

Her parents, emigrants from Norway, moved the family 17 miles inland to Beaumont in 1914 after a hurricane destroyed their Port Arthur surroundings. (It also killed 275 people.) While playing basketball for Beaumont High School in 1930, Babe was offered $75 a month to work for Employers Casualty Company of Dallas to play for its team. Actually, she was paid to be a secretary because she would have lost her amateur status had she been paid to play. Because she had not yet graduated high school, her parents hesitated before allowing her to go. She was outstanding from the start, earning AAU All-American honors from 1930-32. Early in her stay in Dallas, she also took to the track. Soon after taking up the sport in 1930, she won four events in an AAU competition. Babe single-handedly won the 1932 AAU championships, which served as Olympic qualifying, on July 16 in Evanston, Ill. The sole representative of Employers Casualty, she scored 30 points, eight more than the runner-up team, which had 22 athletes.

In a span of three hours, she competed in eight of 10 events, winning five outright and tying for first in the high jump. She set world records in the javelin, 80-meter hurdles, high jump and baseball throw. ZONE POLL While she qualified for five Olympic events in Los Angeles, women were allowed to compete in only three. She won the first women's Olympic javelin (143 feet, 4 inches) and set a world record in winning the first Olympic 80-meter hurdles (11.7 seconds). In the high jump, she and Jean Smiley both broke the world record at 5-foot-5+, but Smiley received the gold and Babe the silver when Babe was disqualified on a dubious ruling after her final jump. The official ruled Babe's head cleared the bar before the rest of her body, a rule that no longer exists. Also, while Babe had jumped in the same manner throughout the competition, nothing was said to her about her style being illegal. During the next few years, she performed on the vaudeville circuit, traveled with a basketball team called Babe Didrikson's All-Americans and toured with the bearded House of David baseball team.

Looking for another challenge, in 1933 she turned to golf, which she had played in high school. Soon after winning the Texas Women's Amateur in 1935, the U.S. Golf Association ruled that "for the best interest of the game," Babe was not an amateur because she had competed professionally in other sports. While Babe continued to golf - as well as play as many as 17 sets of tennis in one day and starring on the bowling lanes - it was not until 1943 that she was reinstated as an amateur. When asked how she could regularly drive the ball some 250 yards though she didn't weigh more than 145 pounds, she said, "You've got to loosen your girdle and let it rip." She ripped it far and straight enough, and putted well enough, that not only did she dominate women's golf, but for three straight years (1945-47) AP named her the Female Athlete of the Year. She turned pro in the summer of 1947 after winning 17 of 18 tournaments. In 1948, Babe won her first U.S.

Women's Open, the World Championship and the All-American Open. She continued her impressive performance on the LPGA Tour for the next several years. Shortly after winning the inaugural Babe Zaharias Open in Beaumont in April 1953, Babe learned she had cancer. Surgeons removed the tumor, but discovered the cancer had spread into her lymph nodes, which were inoperable. Fourteen weeks later, she played in a tournament. By the next year she had completed an incredible golf comeback, winning her third U.S. Women's Open - by an incredible 12 strokes - on the way to five titles and her sixth AP Female Athlete of the Year award. Pain in her lower spine, caused by cancer, became unbearable in 1955. On Sept. 27, 1956, Babe died of the disease in Galveston, Texas. She was 45. Babe Didrikson - oriented sports. ESPNs Larry Schwartz wrote that she was so Babe Didrikson Babe Didrikson - oriented sports. ESPNs Larry Schwartz...

SCHOOL View Full Document Babe Didrikson Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, better known as Babe Didrikson was one of America’s most notable female athletes from the 1930s-1940s, specifically in golf and track and field. Babe challenged the models of femininity through her manly physique and character, and determination to play sports in a time when female athletes were unacceptable and disregarded. According to biography.com, Babe was always competitive and interested in playing sports when growing up, especially the boys’ sports. In fact, her nickname became “Babe” after she hit five home runs in one baseball game. She was one of the most versatile female athletes. Besides playing baseball she also excelled at basketball, track and field, and golf. She was an All-American forward in basketball, a 2-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field, and a champion golfer. Babe’s strength and confidence were qualities that females didn’t commonly express during her time, especially when playing these male This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version. View Full Document This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document.

Unformatted text preview: oriented sports. ESPNs Larry Schwartz wrote that she was so focused and competitive to the point where she would alienate her teammates, and competitors. Although being cocky and overbearing are characteristics that society defines most male athletes, it was how Babe was defined. Even when entering the clubhouse she would say, The Babe is here. Whos coming in 2nd? ( People judged her for not displaying feminine qualities, but that never stopped her from playing baseball, basketball, track and field, or golf. She took the risk to prove to the world how athletic women could be. Sources 1. 2. 3. 4. Frauds vs Leaders Essay Draft University of San Francisco 1 Ethics: Frauds vs. Leaders In a world where deceit and unethical Frauds vs Leaders Essay Draft "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias | WBUR News "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias By Melissa Block Share Melissa Block talks with golfer Marilynn Smith about Mildred Didrikson Zaharias, better known as Babe. In 1945, she became the first woman to play in a PGA event. In fact, Zaharias played in three tournaments with the men that year -- without much fanfare from the media.

Babe was an Olympic athlete, winning several medals in 1932. She went on to become a legend in golf. +Join the discussion Babe’s Life | Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum Foundation BABE-Mildred Ella Didrikson Zaharias World’s Greatest Female Athlete – A brief history by Babe Didrikson Zaharias Foundation It has been said that she got the name “Babe” from her family, as well as a reference to “Babe” Ruth, after she played a good baseball game. Her last name was originally spelled Didriksen, but was changed at some point. There have been many discrepancies in her story, mostly because of her affinity for exaggeration and a good show. The records presented here are believed to be complete and true. Babe’s Life Babe was born in Port Arthur, Texas on June 11, 1911 (not 1914 as she claimed in her auto-biography) and died on September 27, 1956, at 45. She is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont, Texas. She played every sport offered for girls at Beaumont High School, and her record stands at the top for athletic versatility.

She set records in track and field, was an All-American in basketball, mastered tennis, played organized baseball with the House of David, and was an expert diver, roller-skater and bowler. She also spent a short time in 1933 performing on Vaudeville. She was called “Wonder Girl” by Grantland Rice after her performance in the 1932 Olympics, and he did a short film of her talent that can be seen at the museum. She eventually focused on golf, at his suggestion, and went on to be declared by Bobby Jones as one of the 10 best golfers of all time. While she was playing golf, she was paired with George Zaharias, and they were married a short time later on December 23, 1938. They lived in Denver and Tampa, but traveled all over the world so Babe could play golf. Babe was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1953 and had surgery involving a colostomy on April 17, 1953, in Beaumont. She became one of the first public figures to openly discuss her cancer in an attempt to spread awareness about the disease.

In 1955, had back surgery and by 1956, the cancer has spread. She died at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston. Since her death (and some while alive) there are books, plays, and even a movie made about her. The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Foundation, along with George Zaharias raised money for a museum which was completed in 1976. The most recent book is Wonder Girl by Don Van Natta Jr. It is probably the most accurate, complete and well written story of her life and is available at the museum and online. Employer’s Casualty Company (ECC) and American Athletic Union (AAU) Women’s sports in the 1920s & 30s were often company and AAU sponsored events. Babe played for ECC’s basketball team the “Golden Cyclones” and was named All-American in 1930, 1931, & 1932. When she wasn’t playing basketball, she was on their track and field team. In 1930, in the national AAU in Dallas, she won the javelin and baseball throw.

In 1931, in the national AAU in Jersey City, Babe was the leading scorer with three wins – long jump, baseball throw (world record at 296’) and 80m hurdles (national AAU record of 12 seconds). In 1932, Babe won the national women’s AAU/ Olympic tryouts by herself, with 30 points. It has been declared to be the greatest single achievement in a series of events in the history of athletics. The Illinois Women’s Athletic Club finished 2nd, with 22 contestants. She entered eight of the 10 events, excluding only the 50 & 220yd dashes. She won the 8 lb. shot put with 39’6 ¼”; baseball throw (for the third year in a row) with 272’2”; javelin with 139’3”; 80m hurdles in 12.1 sec. She tied Jean Shiley in the high jump with 5’3½”, and each were given a half gold/half silver medal.

In the 80m hurdles she won one heat with 11.9, which was 0.1 seconds better than her previous world record. She finished fourth in the discus. In earning her place on the 1932 Olympic team, the 5’7”, 115 pound girl qualified for five events, but was only allowed to enter three. She won two gold medals for javelin (143’4”) and 80m hurdles (11.7 sec.) She tied Jean Shiley for the high jump with an Olympic record of 5’5¼” (sometimes recorded as 5’5”), but because of her “western roll” style jump, which had never been questioned before, she was awarded the silver medal Track and Field 80 METER HURDLES –1931 AAU record of 12 sec, not broken for 18 years. 1932 Olympic/world record of 11.7 sec until the 1936 games.

JAVELIN – 1932 AAU record 139’3” and Olympic record throw of 143’4”, which stood until the 1936 games. HIGH JUMP – 1932 Olympic/world record 5’5¼” held with Shiley for 6 years worldwide, 16 years as an Olympic record, and 23 years as a U.S. record. LONG JUMP – 1930 unofficial world record of 18’8” because in the same AAU meet, Stella Walsh jumped ½” farther. BASEBALL THROW – 1931 AAU/world record of 296’ still stands today, since the event was discontinued in 1957. Golf American to win the British Women’s Amateur Woman to win both the British and U.S.

Women’s Amateur (1947) Woman to win the Western Women’s Open three times (as an amateur and professional) And only woman to qualify (so far) for the Los Angeles Open, a men’s tournament (1938) She was voted the World’s Greatest Woman Athlete of the First Half of the 20th Century, in a poll conducted by the Associated Press (AP), and the only athlete to be named Woman Athlete of the Year by the AP six times, in 1931, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1950, and 1954. She was awarded the Sports Illustrated “Female Athlete of the 20th Century – Individual Sports.” She has been inducted into too many halls of fame to note here. Golf is the Game She reached great heights in golf and is known as the player who did more than any other to popularize women’s golf. Babe is a member of the Ladies Golf Hall of Fame and Helms Athletic Foundations Golf Hall of Fame. In her career, Babe won 82 golf tournaments, including amateur and professional.

A pioneer of the LPGA tour, playing in the days when tournaments were few, she won 31 events before she died and was the leading money-winner on the tour for four years in a row – 1948 through 1951. In 1948, she won the All-American Open, World Championship and the U.S. Women’s Open. In 1950, she won the All-American Open, World Championship, U.S. Women’s Open, Titleholders, 144-hole Weathervane and Women’s Western Open. In 1951, she won the All-American Open, World Championship, Ponte Vedra Open, Tampa Open, Fresno Open, and Texas Open. She had to win the World Championship 3 times in order to keep the “Dead Head” Trophy, but she actually won it four times in 1948, 1949, 1950, and 1951. It is now on display in the museum. She is one of two players (Louise Suggs) to win both the U.S. Women’s Amateur and U.S. Women’s Open.

In the 1954 Women’s Open-Salem – set a record of 12 shots as the biggest victory margin that has been tied, but not broken. She won the Vare Trophy in 1954 with a 75.48 average. The Babe Zaharias Open was started in her honor in Beaumont in 1953-1955. Babe won the first event and played in all three. Babe claimed to win 17 tournaments in a row She actually won these 3 in 1946: Trans-Mississippi-Denver, beat Polly Riley in finals, 6 & 5. Broadmoor Invitational-Colorado Springs, beat Dot Kielty 6 & 4. All-American Championship at Tam O’Shanter, 310 (medal play). She had one loss, then her 14 amateur victories in a row from 1946-47 are: U.S. Women’s Amateur-Tulsa, beat Clara Callender Sherman 11 & 9 for the biggest margin in the history of the tournament. Texas Women’s Open, beat Betty Hicks 5 & 3.

Tampa Women’s Open, won by five strokes. Helen Lee Doherty Women’s Amateur-Miami, beat Margaret Gunther 12 & 10. Qualified eight below women’s par with 68 and four under men’s par. Babe was only one stroke off the men’s record for the course. Florida Mixed Two-Ball, Partnership with Gerald Walker, won on 31st hole. Palm Beach Women’s Amateur, beat Jean Hopkins, 1 up. Women’s International Four-Ball-Hollywood, FL, with Peggy Kirk, beat Louis Suggs and Jean Hopkins in 18 hole playoff, 4 & 2. South Atlantic Women’s Championship-Ormond Beach, FL beat Peggy Kirk 5 & 4. Florida East Coast Women’s Championship-San Augustine, beat Mary Agnes Wall 2 & 1. Women’s Titleholder-Augusta, overcame 10 stroke lead by Dorothy Kirby to win with 304, by five strokes. North and South Women’s Amateur- Pinehurst, beat Louise Suggs on 2nd extra hole. National Celebrities in Washington, DC British Women’s Amateur-Gullane, Scotland, beat Jacqueline Gordon.

Broadmoor Match Play, beat Dot Kielty 10 & 9. LPGA Record The My Hero Project - Mildred "Babe" Didrikson MILDRED "BABE" DIDRIKSON by Heather Z. Mildred "Babe" Didrikson, born on June 26, 1911 in Port Arthur Texas, has been voted "best woman athlete for the millennium." In her life, she set many records. As a kid Didrikson played baseball, and got the nickname "Babe" because people thought she hit as well as Babe Ruth. Basketball, diving, swimming, track, golf, tennis, bowling, and lacrosse were the sports Babe played as a kid. Didrikson did very well in track, which brought her to the 1932 Olympics. She got gold medals in 2 out of the 3 events she entered. After the Olympics she took up golf, and became such a great golfer that within a few tournaments she turned pro. In California (where Didrikson golfed) she met George Zaharias, and married him. Didrikson entered the British Women's Amateur Tournament and was the first American women to win it.

In that same year both of her parents died. This devastated her, but being strong she returned to the golf course about a week later. In 1949, Didrikson formed the Ladies' Professional Golf Association. In 1953, her life changed. She got a hernia and needed an operation. It was a success, and she entered a few more tournaments. But shortly thereafter she got cancer. She battled back and overrode this cancer. But only weeks later she was informed she had cancer again, and this time it didn't go away. She hung on for awhile, but on September 27, 1956, she lapsed into a coma and died. Babe Didrikson is my hero because I am an athlete, and I admire her courage and determination. She worked hard, and even with the hardships she went through, she accomplished her goals. I don't play golf, but I am glad she set up Women's Golf. She showed that women are just as good as men and can do anything that men can. Her famous quote, "I'm gonna whup em' all" will be remembered for a long time.

Baseball legend Yogi Berra is known for his brilliant career, his wit and his kindness. Like us on facebook:

Question: How was Mildred "Didrikson better known?
Answer: Babe Zaharias