Happy Birthday to the Greatest Babe of All


Babe Didrikson Zaharias would be 100 years old today. She was the greatest American athlete of the early 20th century. She was a basketball champ; she held world records and Olympic medals in track and field; she was even a competitive billiards player and bowler. At the age of 24 she took up golf, then she founded and dominated the LPGA. She's still the only woman to ever make the cut in a regular PGA tournament.

Babe Zaharias was from Beaumont. She was my hero when I was a kid. A couple of weeks ago Becca picked up an old biography about the Babe and started reading it. It's really a shame the Babe isn't better known today -- but you can fix that. Earlier this month a new biography about her came out that you should read. Happy birthday, Babe!
Location: Houston, TX 77018, USA

Comments

  1. CashmereLibrarianJune 26, 2011 at 6:39 PM

    I remember watching a movie about her when I was young. Definitely a character and a force to be reckoned with!

    ReplyDelete
  2. nannieJune 28, 2011 at 9:09 AM

    She is a better embodiment of the "...backwards and in high heels" message, too, I think. EVERYTHING she did amazed people because she was a woman doing it in a man's world. She blazed trails and made no apologies and never looked back. Definitely someone we should be teaching our daughters AND our sons about!

    ReplyDelete
  3. SaraJuly 7, 2011 at 4:31 PM

    I read, and recently found a copy of, a biography of Didrikson when I was about 10 -- it was part of a series called "Childhoods of Great Americans" or somesuch. Her story stuck with me quite a bit.

    ReplyDelete

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