San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Pioneers paved path for women in sports
On the 50th anniversary of Title IX, a look at 10 notable figures and events with Texas ties that came before:
The Babe
Arguably the greatest Texas athlete of either gender, Babe Didrikson Zaharias was named as the 10th greatest North American athlete of the 20th century in a poll conducted for ESPN’s “SportsCentury” project. In 1932, she won the Amateur Athletic Union’s track and field meet single-handedly, winning five of 10 events contested, and she won two gold medals and a bronze in the 1932 Olympic Games. As a founding member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association, she won 41 LPGA Tour events, including 10 majors, before her death due to colon cancer in 1955 at age 45.
The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum in Beaumont honors her memory.
Birth of the LPGA
Along with Zaharias, two other Texans were among the 13 women who created the LPGA in 1950. Bettye Danoff began playing golf at age 6 on her family’s nine-hole course in Grand Prairie. She beat Zaharias to win the 1947 Texas Women’s Open and played on the LPGA Tour as a grandmother. Born in Oklahoma, Betty Jameson graduated from Dallas Sunset and the University of Texas, where she was tutored by Harvey Penick. She gave up a career as a reporter at the San Antonio Light to turn pro and won 10 pro tournaments.
Tennis’ Original Nine
Gladys Heldman, founder of World Tennis magazine, created the first pro tour for women with an inaugural event at the Houston Racquet Club in 1970. Nine players each accepted a dollar from Heldman to establish their professional status, paving the way for the WTA tour of today. Led by Billie Jean King, the group included Peaches Bartkowicz, Rosie Casals, Julie Heldman, Kristy Pigeon, Valerie Ziegenfuss and Australians Judy Tegart Dalton and Kerry Melville Reid. The ninth, Nancy Richey of San Angelo, won two Grand Slam singles titles and four doubles titles as an amateur in the 1960s before turning pro.
The Flying Queens
Wayland Baptist University in Plainview boasts the winningest program in women’s college basketball history, beginning in the 1940s under the AAU and continuing under the
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women and the NAIA. The Queens had a 131game winning streak from 1953 to 1958 and won 10 AAU national titles, offering athletic scholarships at a time when such things were unheard of for women. The Flying Queens nickname came about when boosters Claude and Wilda Hutcherson, owners of Hutcherson Flying Service, began flying the team to away games in 1950-51. Prominent players included three-time All-American Patsy Neal, two-time world championship team member Katherine Washington and 1980 Olympic team member Jill Rankin.
A football first
Frankie Groves in 1947 became the first girl to play football in a University Interscholastic League game, suiting up for Stinnett against Groom. Three weeks later, the UIL passed a rule against girls playing UIL football that remained in place until 1993.
A baseball move
Linda Williams, a senior volleyball and tennis player at Wheatley High School, petitioned to join Wheatley’s baseball team in 1978 because the school had no softball team for girls and the University Interscholastic League banned girls from playing with boys’ baseball teams. She was granted an injunction by U.S. District Judge Woodrow Seals and played for the Wildcats in a game against Sterling on March 30, 1978. She was 0-for-2 with a walk and committed an error in a 7-0 Wheatley loss.
From the Shamrock Hilton to the Olympics
Cynthia Potter began diving as a teenager at the Shamrock Hilton and Dad’s Club pools in Houston and in 1968 accepted an invitation from coach Hobie Billingsley to train as a nonscholarship athlete at Indiana University. She went on to win 28 national titles and competed in three Olympic Games, winning a bronze medal in 1978. She was three times selected as World Diver of the Year.
A Grand Slam
Maureen Connolly Brinker, known as “Little Mo,” in 1953 became the first woman to win tennis’ Grand Slam. She won nine Grand Slam singles titles and three doubles titles before a horse riding accident led her to retire from the sport in 1955 at age 19. A native of San Diego, she moved to Dallas in 1955 after marrying restaurant magnate Norman Brinker and remained active in the sport until her death from cancer in 1969. She is a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Synchro’s best
Joy Cushman attended seven Olympic Games and 11 Pan American games as a coach, judge and administrator in the sport of synchronized swimming. She helped popularize the sport as director of the Corkettes at the Shamrock Hotel in the 1950s and was selected to the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2018 at age 93. She died last December at age 97.
Hall of Famers
Judy Rankin played in the U.S. Women’s Open at age 15 and turned pro in age 17. She moved to Midland in the mid-1960s and won 26 LPGA championships, becoming the first woman to earn more than $100,000 in 1976. She is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and World Golf Hall of Fame.
Sandra Haynie of Fort Worth joined the LPGA Tour in 1961 at age 18 and won 42 tournaments, including four major championships. She was among the top 10 in LPGA earnings for 13 years and is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and World Golf Hall of Fame.
Born in Monahans, Kathy Whitworth turned pro at age 19 and retired from the LPGA Tour with 88 tournament victories, the most of any male or female professional golfer.
She won at least one tournament in 23 consecutive years and was player of the year seven times between 1965-73. She, too, is a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and World Golf Hall of Fame.