Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, an Inductee of the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame was the quintessential athlete whose performance in multiple sports made her a cultural icon and a sports legend. The Associated Press named her Female Athlete of the Year six times from 1932 to 1954 and Female Athlete of the Half Century in 1950. No other woman has performed in so many different sports so well. Babe, nicknamed because of her home-run-hitting prowess as a youngster, was a pioneer who struggled to break down stereotypes of women in professional sports. She not only insisted on a sports career but also played in sports that were traditionally considered to be the male’s domain and refused to conform to the ladylike image required of female athletes.
How good was babe drix and I’m going to go on record and say that she was the greatest athlete of all time she won 82 golf tournaments in her career I don’t know of another male athlete or female athlete who could play that many sports and Excel she was a
Champion she made dagio swing and miss and outplayed sarisin she excelled basketball bowling Billiards tennis softball diving archery Golf and five Olympic events babe dedrickson gave birth to the modern woman athlete as strong and enduring as the Rocky Mountains they Stood Beside as Visionary as the views of the grand
Plains they looked across the women inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame are Trailblazers whose work has improved improved and enriched Our Lives they are teachers scientists ranchers leaders in business education religion and the Arts women who have been recognized for their many contributions to our state our country and the world
I’m renel de Muse and these are the stories of great Colorado Women babe dedrickson babe wants said before I was even in my teens I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up my goal was to be the greatest athlete that ever lived she didn’t say she’d try basketball and see how she did and if
She didn’t do too well she’d try something else she didn’t say she’d try out for the softball team and if she didn’t make it she’d quit she said before I was even in my team I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up my goal was to be the greatest
Athlete that ever lived she found her gift as a child she knew what her mission was she stated it I want to be the world’s greatest female athlete All-American in basketball All-American in softball national championships in track and field the first woman in Olympic history to win
Two first Place gold medals babe was a superstar in many many sports baseball track and field she was a basketball player she played pool I think she had this god-given talent to be a world’s greatest woman athlete you may remember that she decided to take up golf she won 82 golf
Tournaments in her career which is just unheard of winning was the most important thing if she was going to play she was going to win when she was born all of her stars were in place babe was born in uh Port Arthur Texas she was well liked in high
School she was you know well known as an athlete everybody knew she wanted to be the world’s greatest woman athlete she let it be known Babe’s real name was mild her mother nicknamed her babe because she was a great baseball player and it was the Babe Ruth era we’d all call her babe
None of us ever called her Mildred Babe Ruth was hitting home runs for the Yankees uh babe drion was hitting home runs for her local baseball team so she got her nickname of babe and she kept it one of the things about babe drickson is the era in which she competed late
20s early 30s late 30s early 40s and into the early 50s this was pre-title 9 before there was any law uh that promoted women in sports or forced administrators to offer sports for women babe was an All-American basketball player she played competitively for employees Casualty Company out of
Dallas women’s basketball at that time the competitors competed for local companies and companies would recruit you know the best players in their area and they’d come and they were given a job but their job really was to compete in that Sport and basketball was a sport
And really if you think about this is right around the time of preor War II uh many of the men were moving off into other places so to leave home and begin to make money as an athlete shows a whole lot of self assurance and a lot of
Confidence that she knew she was that good first of all as an athlete and secondly she could promote herself babe drion comes to Dallas uh to compete in basketball and then shifted over into track and field babe used to run the hedges and she’d ask the neighbors to cut the hedges a certain
Height so that would be olympic size hurdle and she’d run down the the street on the people’s Lawns jumping his Hedges track and field was an area that where women could show their as an athlete and she shows up solo to the amateur athletic Union uh tryouts for the
Olympics by the next day babe had collected herself winning six events and setting four world records as the only representative of employers casualty deed Dixon won the team competition by herself and that’s how she she uh obtained a birth on the Olympic team in the 1932 Olympics babe was only
Allowed to do three events Javelin high jump and the 100 yard hurdles she won the javelin she also won it in the 100 m barely barely just by you know sticking her chin out and hitting this tape and then she W won the silver in the high
Jump and no one in her family went to the Olympics to watch her she was there alone a young girl alone to do that with obsolete training when you make yourself go out without a coach out to a track that she could find in the Dallas area to train yourself
Just think of how dedicated but also a god-given talent in her ability to do these things there wasn’t gear for women back in that era there wasn’t support uh strength coaches it was just a really a foreign notion that women were competitors so the lack of support uh that she had in training
Yet she was a champion it is just phenomenal in what she was able to do babe should have been embraced as an American hero instead she was treated unevenly by a press that could not reconcile her sex with her athletic accomplishments those medals she put
Them away what was the world going to do with a woman that won so many medals she couldn’t make any money off of it either you know what do you do when you’re Olympic star so she played the homar in in bville she did a lot of other things to
Keep her name in the papers babe did cut a record for mercury records called Detour she was a self-promoter she’d get out there and she’d do some calisthenics on the stage and people would say oh let’s go see babe drion did a little tap dance she didn’t even know how to tap dance she just put it all together she
Sing I mean she was just had a lot of Charisma so you were able to go and watch her play and had fun watching her play and people were drawn to that another thing that was amazing about babe was that she did play Major League Baseball babe didrickson
Pitched U three or four Innings against Major League Baseball players and that takes a whole lot of courage to wind up and stand directly in front of a powerful hitter somebody like Babe Ruth Jo deio people that could you know line drive it right back to the pitcher she did strike out Ted
Williams there’s not very many women in the 30s and 40s there’s no female I I don’t think even currently who would stand up and and do that that that is a another one of her many achievements just like she played on the House of David baseball team which was a lot of
Old bearded guys you know traveling on around the country something like the Harlem Globe trots doing these exhibition baseball games and she uh played on their team as the only female well her other sports I knew she liked to swim and I I remember when she
Was at the Olympics her and another girl that was on the swim team for the Olympics went back into the pool everything was closed down for the night everyone should have been in bed and so on and those two went back to the pool and baby told her she says wow I should
Have joined the swim team because I could do this and so then they jumped in the water and of course babe swam it and I think the other swimmer was a little put off you know that here I’ve trained and trained and trained and then somebody just jumps in the water and she
Does it in record time one of the things that babe drion could do is have transferable skills so she could throw a baseball she could hit a baseball a mile and and to be able to transfer that skill into hitting a golf ball she whacked that ball you couldn’t
After that ball left that te you could hardly see it she could hit it as far as any guy learning golf at age 24 is very difficult she had a she had to work hard at it it’s not an easy sport and she would practice from sun up to sun down
She had that determination and a lot of times for an athlete it’s not just your athleticism is also your will to win and to learn at age 24 it took a a lot of drive and a lot of practice and good instruction and she as I said earlier
She really used with the god-given talent that was given to her before her very first tournament she practiced 12 to 16 hours a day she would drill and drill and drill on all the different shots until her hands were blistered many days bleeding she went on to Wi every available golf
Tournament but the secret of her success 12 to 16 hours of practice a day and the fact that she not just competed she won uh championships so many championships uh shows her her competitive Spirit but it is very extremely hard to to do as well as she did right off the bat
Because she I think she won her first tournament two years after she learned how to play golf she had mind over matter I think in her find she had so much confidence and so much fine-tuning that she was going to show the world yes
A woman can do it she did it and she loved to play babe drion a Harris winner of the British woman’s Amer golf CR I must say that I’ve just completed the greatest thrill of my life and that was going over to England in Scotland and win the
British amate Championship it has never been won by an American woman and I’m the first one she just made made it look easy for average golfers to go oh I think I want to work on my game and get better at that and everybody thinks of babe as a big gigantic woman
56 very slender for babe to go from playing basketball in the 1932 track and field the Olympics and then shift over into professional golf what she was able to do is avoid serious injuries and I would I would say a lot of that is due to the fact that she she did
Continue to switch Sports and not have the overuse injuries chin splints rotator cuff acl’s you see so many women basketball players with acl’s currently because they’re playing basketball year round she switched off and it probably prolonged her career that goes back to her fine-tuning her nervous system her MUSC muscular
Structure she achieved so much in all of the sports that she did but golf is one of her true loves babe was playing in a in a golf event in LA and apparently she had met a man named George zaharis he’s a big time wrestler you know very famous on his own right She wanted to play as an amateur and he was going to play but he was paired with her he says I ain’t going to play with no girl then they meet and a spark just happens and they played and they went out for dinner and they had a lot of fun and I
Think they fell in love right away and they I think they dated 3 or 4 months or something like that and then got married they had a great marriage he was off doing his thing promoting she was playing golf so they had two different careers and they didn’t Collide each one
Of them respected each other’s career and she ended up in Colorado because of George connections he was born right here in Pueblo Colorado and he lived in Denver he did a lot of promoting there she did a lot of golf she love Denver it was a
Little bit quieter for her she was well known playing a lot of golf in Denver I think she played a lot of Fitz Simmons as well as Lakewood when babe would play with the Lakewood Club men members here uh she would play from the same men’s teas that they play from she wouldn’t
Play from the front lady’s teas and they would they would be betting on the round and uh I think that uh she would win most of the time she was also promoting herself and she went from stop to stop she she had a lot of media attention my
Aunt babe was asked to play in the movie starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine hiitburn and she was to play herself and Katherine hiitburn was playing sort of a babe figure and babe was going to play a match against this character that Katherine hebburn was playing one Contender still to be yes
Here she comes now the Mighty B we’ll have her score for you in just a second here it is now wow ladies and gentlemen the top score of the B har has just qualified with a sensational 73 and supposedly beat Catherine hebburn and heurn didn’t like that cuz in the script
Heurn was supposed to win but babe said I’m not being in this movie unless I win and that was a big thing with babe she wanted to win headb bur and her kind of clashed a little bit babe says well she’s just full of herself you know she was always joking always having
Fun always the center of attention she liked the attention she was a showman Not only would she hit the shot she probably called the shot do you want me to hit this High over that tree well yeah she did it she had that much confidence great great confidence in her ability to do
Things she was very interested in getting women’s golf going and wanted a Professional Organization to do that her greatest Legacy probably was uh helping establish and being an instrumental of the ladies professional Golf Association she was a leader in trying to create more opportunities for women which was a Pioneer I mean it
Would laid the groundwork for women in golf I am actually an LPGA teaching pro and I get to do what I do because of Babe starting the LPGA babe would go out and promote and do personal appearances it could be at a local ball game it
Could be at a boxing match it could be at a a grocery store to sell tickets for the gallery to come out and see the LPGA players it was a new thing I mean a a tour I think one of the reasons the LPGA was very successful in the
Beginning was because babe was the Entertainer it didn’t set well with a few of them on the LPGA Tour and there was some jealousy Louise Suggs could not stand her her light-heartedness and the joking and stuff like that not to disrupt their play so much but I think to keep them
Light but she was also the drawing card for the the upstart of the ladies professional Golf Association the sad side of her life life I think is when she did come down with the cancer the cancer okay was diagnosed in 1953 this was going to be different for
Her after playing at a tournament in the Broadmore she drove home to to the farm to stay overnight and my mother was doing dishes in the kitchen and she started yelling at my mom Annie Annie come out here quick and she says and bring a towel and so Mom went out and
There was blood on the seat this was before she was diagnosed and my mother said oh my God babe she saids you have to go see a doctor oh no no I’ve got all these exhibitions to do George has lined up all these exhibitions I can’t let these
People down well she let it go I think if she would have went sooner to the doctor they would have caught it but at the time that babe had had cancer they were treating it differently and I think that she knew she was only going to live so
Long and the doctors told her he if she had the surgery she would be have to retire from golf and she decided that wasn’t going to happen so she had the surgery and she actually played in a golf tournament I think 3 months after that and um and won that tournament
Which was incredible that she could come back and play with her coloss bag the most satisfying to her and people really don’t realize that is the 1954 US Women’s Open the final round of the women’s ntional open at the Salem Country Club near Boston Thursday 18 holes Friday 18 holes and then finishes
It up on a Saturday 36 hole final babe drops a six-footer to preserve her par and her big lead Mrs zaharas who so far ahead the rest can hardly see her with a telescope this was right after she had her colostomy can you believe it Mrs zaharas
Has the crown wrapped up just 18 months ago she underwent an operation for cancer everyone said her career was over but here she is winning by a mile she won that tournament by 12 shots and that was one tournament where I I think babee usually she would do a funny thing if
She want to turn you know jump in my uncle’s arms or do a cartwheel on the green or something like that she took off her hat and she bowed to the gallery and then her an acceptance speech she thanked God for letting her play again I don’t like to keep uh
Bringing up this uh Hospital deal of mine uh but uh I was laying there in room 2011 at the hotel du hospital and uh these reports were going out about that I never play Championship or tournament golf again and uh I laid in the bed and I
Says please God let me play again and he answered my prayer and I want to thank God for letting me win again it’s really after her operation in 1953 she told her husband George that she wanted to do something so that no one has to go through what she went through
And to help fight this terrible disease and she says let’s start a babe zaharas cancer fund and many many tournaments are held in honor of babe babe was the first spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society the time of my aunt’s death was uh 1956 my uncle called first but then we
Heard it on the radio and it just kind of stunned us all was just shocked us she battled that cancer it was just so bad the one thing that she always said she says cancer will never beat me I’m going to be cremated and I will beat it I’m not
Going to lay in the grave and be eaten by the cancer I’m going to beat it all of this played into her becoming the world’s greatest athlete Sports Illustrated zor for individual sport female athlete of the century all face barriers and they all shattered those barriers in the process
Helping to create a mo movement that going into the 21st century is strong and vital anything you could do she could do better babe dedr zaharas won Olympic gold medals in the javelin and hurdles 16 years before she won the first of her three us opens in
Golf she was named after the baseball slugger but there is simply no one in the annals of sport quite like this babe whose versatility seems the stuff of [Applause] Fiction but there’s no question in my mind that she could compete right now and be be very successful what I learned from her was practice uh be truthful to yourself be honest be an honest person she created the tour which gave that opportunity for women to compete for
Money like the men did this was her philosophy in life be good do good be the winner and that she was she was the winner and if you think about this is this is a girl from uh Port Arthur Texas who never graduated from high school and
Makes it as the greatest athlete of all time I’m going to go on record and say the greatest athlete of all time she’s not make believe she wasn’t made of she’s the real person she really lived she really had her triumphs she broke the mold for women and paved the way for
Us to be able to have more opportunity in golf to be able to play in more tournaments I think every girl should be told her story and that they could do it if they want to I don’t know of another male athlete or female athlete who could play that
Many sports and Excel she was a champion you can do anything in the world that you want to do you can be anything that you want to be but your success or your failure will not depend on genius Talent age appearance health or luck it will depend strictly on you
