Third Day of Women's History Month: Babe Didrikson Zaharias

When I was a kid, I was not athletic at all.  I had severe asthma and allergies, which kept me from playing many sports, but I did love softball.
And I loved watching female athletes--it amazed me they could do the things I could not, and they made it look so effortless.  Now that I'm adult, I'm still in awe of female athletes, but I now know how difficult it really is--first, to excel in a sport, and then, many times, to have to prove women can do it too (often without the funding or the fan support that the same men's program has).
In 1975, I watched the movie, "Babe", and was shocked to learn about this incredible woman, and saddened that I had not heard of her before--she was such an amazing athlete (arguably the greatest athlete of the 20th century).  
Babe was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1911.  She got the nickname, "Babe", because as a kid, she hit five homeruns in a single baseball game. 
She didn't just play baseball--she played, and excelled, at basketball, diving, tennis, track and field, and golf.
In the 1932 Olympics, she entered the three events open to women, and managed to set FOUR world records.  
Want more?  She pitched an inning for the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition game with the Philadelphia Athletics. She excelled at almost everything she tried: when only 16 she won a prize for a dress that she had made, at the Texas State Fair; she could type 86 words a minute; she could throw a baseball from deep center field to home plate—once a throw of hers was measured at over 300 feet. In 1947, Zaharias became the first American woman to win the British Ladies' Amateur Championship, at Gullane, Scotland. On one hole she stroked a drive so far that a spectator whispered, "She must be Superman's sister."
Amazing woman, amazing feats, and yet so unknown.

"Golf is a game of coordination, rhythm and grace; women have these to a high degree."