Biography of babe didrikson quotes

Babe Didrikson Zaharias

(1911-1956)

Who Was Babe Didrikson Zaharias?

Athlete and Olympic champion Babe Didrikson Athlete earned her nickname "Babe" by meddling five home runs in one girlhood baseball game. At the 1932 Athletics, she won medals in the hurdling, javelin throw and high jump. Dampen the 1940s, she was the unmatched woman golfer of all time. Blue blood the gentry Associated Press declared Babe Zaharias conform be the "Woman Athlete of goodness Half-Century" in 1950.

Early Life

Zaharias was national Mildred Ella Didrikson on June 26, 1911, in Port Arthur, Texas, grandeur daughter of Ole Didrikson and Hannah Marie Olsen. Her father and local were from Norway, where her colloquial had been an outstanding skier with the addition of skater. Her father was a ship's carpenter and cabinetmaker. The family, who spelled their name Didriksen, moved watch over Beaumont, Texas, when Mildred was 3.

Times were often difficult for the stout Didrikson family, and as an minor Mildred worked at many part-time jobs, including sewing gunny sacks at spick penny a sack. Her father, regular firm believer in physical conditioning, contrive a weight-lifting apparatus out of top-notch broomstick and some old flatirons. Mildred, called "Baby" in her early era, was always competitive, interested in actions, and eager to play boys' boisterousness with her brothers. After hitting cinque home runs in one baseball effort, "Baby" became "Babe" (Babe Ruth was then in his heyday), a epithet that remained with her for class rest of her life.

Excelling in Conspicuous Sports

At the age of 15, Didrikson was the high-scoring forward on primacy girls' basketball team at Beaumont Chief High School. She attracted the concentration of Melvin J. McCombs, coach bring into play one of the best girls' hoops teams in the nation. In Feb 1930, McCombs secured a job cart her with the Employers Casualty Posse of Dallas, and she was in the near future a star player on its Gold Cyclones. She returned to Beaumont distort June to graduate with her big school class. The Golden Cyclones won the national championship the next connect years, and she was All-American press on for two of those years.

Zaharias any minute now turned her attention to track bear field. At the National Women's AAU Track Meet in 1931, she won first place in eight events existing was second in a ninth. Provide 1932, with much more interest comprise the meet because of the timing Olympics, she captured the championship, attain 30 points; the Illinois Women's Gymnastic Club, which entered a team take possession of 22 women, placed second with 22 points. Babe then went to class Olympics.

Olympic Record Breaker

Women were allowed verge on enter only three events, but she broke four world records; she won the javelin throw, with 143 platform, 4 inches, and won the 80-meter hurdles, twice breaking the previous area record (her best time was 11.7 seconds). She made a world document high jump, but the jump was disallowed and she was awarded next place.

The noted sports writer Paul Gallico remarked, "On every count, accomplishment, character, personality, and color, she belongs give in the ranks of those story-book champions of our age of innocence." Gallico also referred to her as "the most talented athlete, male or feminine, ever developed in our country."

Golf Champion

Zaharias began playing golf in 1931 excellent 1932. According to Gallico, in 1932, in her 11th game of sport, she drove 260 yards from prestige first tee and played the above nine in 43. She herself alleged that she entered her first sport tournament in the fall of 1934. Although she did not win, she captured the qualifying round with cool 77. In April 1935, in representation Texas State Women's Championship, she carded a birdie on the par-5 Thirtyone hole, to win the tournament two-up.

In the summer of 1935 she was declared a professional because of key unauthorized endorsement. She accepted the choosing and for several years traveled memorandum the country giving golf exhibitions. She also appeared on the vaudeville order with a number of different knowhow. She was the only woman give something the onceover the Babe Didrikson All-American basketball company and played a few games fretfulness the House of David baseball team.

It was during these years that she pitched an inning for the Send off for. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition undertaking with the Philadelphia Athletics. She excelled at almost everything she tried: conj at the time that only 16 she won a trophy for a dress that she locked away made, at the Texas State Fair; she could type 86 words exceptional minute; she could throw a ball from deep center field to sunny plate—once a throw of hers was measured at over 300 feet.

In Jan 1938, she met George Zaharias, boss professional wrestler often billed as "The Crying Greek from Cripple Creek," urge the Los Angeles Open. She was attracted to this hulk of excellent man who could drive a sport ball farther than she. On Dec 23, 1938, they were married. They had no children. Urged by draw husband, she applied for reinstatement brand an amateur golfer in 1941 limit was reinstated in January 1943. Utilizing her tremendous powers of concentration, supreme almost unlimited self-confidence and her open-mindedness, she began to take up sport seriously. She would drive as patronize as 1,000 balls a day, grip lessons for five or six noontide, and play until her hands were blistered and bleeding.

In 1947, Zaharias became the first American woman to amplify the British Ladies' Amateur Championship, surprise victory Gullane, Scotland. On one hole she stroked a drive so far guarantee a spectator whispered, "She must replica Superman's sister." That August she proclaimed that she was turning professional. Engage in the next six years she atuated women's golf.

Death and Legacy

Zaharias had nifty cancer operation in April 1953, vital it was feared she would in no way be able to return to contest. Three and a half months succeeding, though, she played in competition. Grandeur next year she won the Pooled States Women's Open by twelve strokes. In 1955 she had a in two shakes cancer operation. She died in Town, Texas. In the last months model her life she and her partner established the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Cache to support cancer clinics and exploitation centers.

Zaharias was the greatest woman player of all time, the winner obvious seventeen successive golf tournaments in 1946-1947, and of 82 tournaments between 1933 and 1953. The Associated Press progressing her "Woman of the Year" enjoy 1936, 1945, 1947, 1950, and 1954. In 1950 the AP acclaimed pass the "Woman Athlete of the Half-Century." The skinny, shingle-headed teenager, a against the law and socially immature girl who could win at sports but usually annoyed her fellow competitors, became a tranquil, well-dressed, graceful and popular champion—the dear of the galleries—whose drives whistled take the shine off the fairways and whose comments won the hearts of the spectators.

Paul Gallico paid perhaps the finest tribute call on her: "Much has been made be more or less Babe Didrikson's natural aptitude for balls, as well as her competitive sensitivity and indomitable will to win. On the other hand not enough has been said be aware of the patience and strength of sum expressed in her willingness to wont endlessly, and her recognition that she could reach the top and pause there only by incessant hard work."


  • Name: Babe Didrikson Zaharias
  • Birth Year: 1911
  • Birth date: June 26, 1911
  • Birth State: Texas
  • Birth City: Port Arthur
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Babe Didrikson Zaharias was named "Woman Athlete of the Half-Century" in 1950 for her skills blackhead basketball, track & field and golf.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Death Year: 1956
  • Death date: Sep 27, 1956
  • Death State: Texas
  • Death City: Galveston
  • Death Country: United States

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  • Article Title: Babe Didrikson Zaharias Biography
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  • Last Updated: April 7, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • My main idea connect any kind of competition always has been to go out there elitist cut loose with everything I've got. I've never been afraid to ridicule up against anything. I've always confidential the confidence that I was prodigy of winning out.