The ep17 Babe Didrikson Zaharias

This is Jimmy Powers and happy to be coming your way with another Grantland Rice story. Hi there, this is Jimmy Powers Transcribe bringing you another chapter from the Grantland Rice story, the tumult and the shouting.

So far we've met many of the greats in our journey down Granny's friendship road in the world of sports, but in most cases the emphasis has been on the male side. Today Granny's next chapter deals with the Distaf side.

So with a low bow to Granny Rice I pick up the narrative in first person and turn to the chapter entitled The Other Babe and Women in Sports. For more than fifty years I have watched a great sports story gather tidal wave force.

This is the story of women in competition, a story practically unknown at the turn of the century. Who were the women golf and tennis stars of 1900? I'll have to admit I don't recall, although there must have been a faint flutter of interest in certain games at that time.

However, in my opinion, the two girls who did most to turn the world spotlight on their sex, with the possible exception of Cleopatra, were Elinara Sears and Babe Deepdrickson Saharias, a Boston society girl, and a solid Texas miss.

I didn't glimpse the Sears girl in the early 1900s when she was blazing a trail by kicking holes in all feminine concepts of competitive sports. She played a man's game in tennis. An excellent player with a smashing game, she was also a powerful swimmer, a golfer who could punch her shots, a fine horsewoman, and a squash racquet's champion for many years.

I read where this wonderful girl played in the national championships during the winter of 1954 at 70 years young. Anything you can do, I can do better, was a hit when Ethel Merman sang it.