Babe Didriksen Zaharias Essay Research Paper Mildred — страница 2

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resented her. They complained that she was an aggressive, overbearing show-off who would stop at nothing in order to win. During the trip to Los Angeles for the Olympic Games, many of her teammates began to despise her, but her performance during the Olympiad made her a favorite among sportswriters and with the public. At Los Angeles, Didrikson won two gold medals and a silver medal, set a world’s record, and was the co-holder of two others. She won the javelin event and the eighty-meter hurdles and came in second in the high-jump event amid a controversy which saw two rulings of the judges go against her. Didrikson came very close to winning three Olympic gold medals, which had never been accomplished before by a woman. She became a princess to the press, and her performance

in Los Angeles created a base for Didrikson’s lasting fame as an athlete. After the 1932 Olympic Games, Didrikson returned to Dallas for a hero’s welcome. At the end of 1932, the Associated Press voted her Woman Athlete of the Year, an award that she won five more times, in 1945, 1946, 1947, 1950, and 1954. After a controversy with the Amateur Athletic Union concerning her amateur status, Didrikson turned professional in late 1932. She did some promotional advertising and briefly appeared in a vaudeville act in Chicago, where she performed athletic feats and played her harmonica, a talent she had developed when she was a kid. Struggling to make a living as a professional athlete, Didrikson played in an exhibition basketball game in Brooklyn, participated in a series of

billiard matches, and talked about becoming a long-distance swimmer. In 1933, she decided to barnstorm the rural areas of the country with a professional basketball team called Babe Didrikson’s All-Americans. The tour was very successful for several years, as the team traveled to the smallest and most deserted places of America playing against local men’s teams. In 1934, Didrikson went to Florida and appeared in major league exhibition baseball games during spring training and then played on the famous House of David all the men on the team sported long beards baseball team on a nationwide tour. As a result of her many exhibitions, Didrikson was able to earn several thousand dollars each month, which was every good since it was during the Depression. During the mid-1930’s,

Didrikson’s athletic interests increasingly shifted to golf. Receiving encouragement from sportswriter Grantland Rice, she began intensive lessons in 1933, often hitting balls until her hands bled. She played in her first tournament in Texas in 1934 and a year later won the Texas Women’s Amateur Championship. That same year, Didrikson was bitterly disappointed when the United States Golf Association (USGA) declared her a professional and banned her from amateur golf. Unable to make a living from the few tournaments open to professionals, Didrikson toured the country with professional golfer Gene Sarazen, participating mainly in exhibition matches. On December 23, 1938, Didrikson married George Zaharias, a professional wrestler. They did not have any children during their

marriage. Her marriage helped put to rest rumors that she was in fact a male and other attacks on her femininity. Zaharias became her manager and under his direction she won the 1940 Texas and Western Open golf tournaments. During World War II, Babe Zaharias gave golf exhibitions to raise money for war bonds and agreed to refrain from professional athletics for three years in order to regain her amateur status. In 1943, the USGA restored her amateur standing. After the war, Babe Zaharias emerged as one of the most successful and popular women golfers in history. In 1945, she played flawless golf on the amateur tour and was named Woman Athlete of the Year for the second time. The following year, she began a string of consecutive tournament victories, a record that has never been

equaled by man or woman. During the 1946-1947 seasons, Zaharias won seventeen straight tournaments, including the British Women’s Amateur. She became the first American to win the prestigious British championship. In the summer of 1947, Zaharias turned professional once again, with Fred Corcoran as her manager. She earned an estimated $100,000 in 1948 through various promotions and exhibitions, but only $3,400 in prize money on the professional tour, despite a successful season. In 1948, Corcoran organized the Ladies Professional Golfer’s Association (LPGA) in order to help popularize women’s golf and increase tournament prize money. During the next several years, the LPGA grew in stature and Zaharias became the leading money winner on the women’s professional circuit. In