Thursday, March 12, 1998
Jill-of-all-trades uses athletics to succeed
WOMEN: Stories, myths shroud amazing athlete in mystery,
wonderment
By Kristina Wilcox
Daily Bruin Staff
What a mysterious woman.
Mildred Ella Didriksen was born to Norwegian immigrant parents
in Texas sometime during the early 1910s. "Babe," as she was later
known, liked to tinker a bit with her age. Popular legend places
her birthday in 1914, but Didriksen’s biographer, Susan E. Cayleff,
argues that she was actually born in June of 1911, regardless of
the historical markers, applications and autobiographies that would
suggest otherwise.
Also, an error on school records went unrectified in terms of
the spelling of her family’s last name. "I didn’t want people to
think I was a Swede," she once said, so she went on as Didrikson
forever after.
With those little stories in mind, we can think of Didrikson as
a lighthearted individual. But underneath that exterior personality
stood an intensely competitive woman who happened to be an
excellent athlete, a jill-of-all-trades.
Didrikson earned her nickname when she began demonstrating her
power in ballgames. Babe Ruth was everyone’s idol during her
childhood, so that’s what her buddies called her.
Actually, that’s another bit of twisted truth that Babe would
have you believe.
Here’s another explanation for her Ruthian name.
As the youngest daughter of seven children, Babe’s older
siblings and parents had special affection for her, even after her
younger brother was born. She was called "Baby" until she started
school and complained of the childish nickname, Didrikson said.
They then switched to calling her by her birth name, Millie.
Oh, another figment of Babe’s imagination there. Sorry about
that.
Babe’s brothers claim the Norwegian nickname "Baden," "babe" or
"baby" in English, stuck, and that’s how she ended up with that
nickname for the rest of her life.
So now that you are all confused, it’s time to make your heads
spin faster as we go through an account of Babe’s athletic
accomplishments.
Babe has a natural gift for sports that can be genetically
traced back to her graceful mother, an amateur athlete while
growing up in Norway.
Babe put her innate talents to use by practicing all sports
imaginable. Babe and her siblings played on a gymnasium constructed
by their father in the backyard.
They would then move onto neighborhood games, for which Babe was
always the first pick – baseball, jumping, marbles, you name
it.
Didrikson honed her athletic skills during school, beating all
the boys at their own games, while the other girls played games
that did not interest her. Babe was a tomboy to the extreme.
At 19 (if you go by the 1911 birthdate), she left home to play
in a semiprofessional basketball league sponsored by local
insurance companies to promote efficiency and reliability among
their employees. Her poor family needed money, so she used her
skills to bring home the bacon. Babe was a typist by day, a touring
athlete by night.
Didrikson claimed to have hit "something like 13 home runs in
one doubleheader," demonstrating "Mighty Mildred’s" cocky attitude
as well as her fabled power, both of which carried her into the
Amateur Athletic Union’s (AAU) national championships in 1932, and
then the Olympics.
Didrikson’s boss and coach, Melvin McCombs, signed her up as a
one-woman, track-and-field team for eight events in the AAU
competition. She promptly won the championship.
It was off to Los Angeles after that sweep, where she would
compete in three summer Olympic events – javelin, hurdles, and high
jump. She was the "undisputed star of the women’s games," according
to Cayleff, setting new Olympic and world records in the javelin
throw and 80-meter hurdles.
Babe’s gold in the hurdles was tarnished by the close race
between herself and a teammate, who claimed to have won the race
but was denied the gold medal because of favoritism and
publicity.
The high jump was also a controversial event for Babe. She and
another teammate tied in that event, but Babe’s headfirst dive over
the bar was declared illegal, so the teammate won the gold, and
Babe had to settle for second place. Because of the controversy,
Babe’s medal was the only medal in Olympic history to be half gold
and half silver.
Didrikson earned money for her struggling family thus by
traveling with vaudeville acts and all-male sports teams, such as
the House of David baseball players. There was no professional
outlet for women’s athletes at the time.
Babe eventually took up golf, bringing a power to the sport that
had never been seen before in a woman’s body. The AAU disqualified
her from amateur competition in 1935, citing her earlier efforts to
earn money as against the Union’s rules. While struggling
financially and legally, Babe married the wealthy former boxer
George Zaharias, with whom she was teamed for the Los Angeles Open
in January 1938. The "Crying Greek from Cripple Creek" supported
her financially while she regained amateur status.
Once she got it back, she won 14 consecutive amateur golf
titles, including the British Women’s Open of 1947, making her the
first American to garner the prestigious title and propelling her
to go pro.
One year after winning the British Open, Didrikson Zaharias
collaborated with five other golfers to create the Ladies
Professional Golf Association (LPGA).
And then cancer struck its heavy hand in 1953, cutting years off
of Babe’s athletic career. Didrickson won her third U.S. Women’s
Open 15 months after undergoing a colostomy for cancer of the
rectum.
After a second bout with cancer, Babe Didrikson Zaharias died in
September 1956.
In 45 years, Babe accomplished so many goals and helped advance
women in the world of sports. May her life no longer be a mystery
to sports fans, historians, feminists and society in general.
Susan E. Cayleff’s "Babe" and Jill Ker Conway’s "Written By
Herself" were consulted in the writing of this article. Wilcox’s
next women’s sports history feature will be on women and
baseball.