Anyone can be considered a good athlete, but few can be called great. To be great you have to create changes in a sport that everyone can recognize. Being able to create a noticeable change will allow more opportunities for the ones who are still growing up and want to make their own path. A woman by the name of Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrickson Zaharias has done this. With the help of her exceptional athletic ability, she opened up a world of opportunities for women in the world of sports. She broke barriers and did what she knew she could accomplish. She lived a great life and left her footprints in the history of sports.
Mildred Ella Didrickson was born on June 26, 1911 in Port Arthur, Texas. Her parents were Ole and Hannah who were born in Norway. When Mildred was four years old, her family moved to Beaumont, Texas. She had six brothers and sisters: Dora, Nancy, Ole, Lillie and Louis (twins), and Arthur. Mildred was the second youngest in her family. While growing up, Mildred enjoyed playing baseball. In one of her games she hit five homeruns and was later given the name “Babe.” Sometimes while running errands for her mother she would turn it into a race and use the hedges as hurdles and jump over them and would time
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During her professional career, she won 31 tournaments. She underwent a serious operation on April 17, 1953 attempting to remove the cancer. Only six months after her operation she won the Servin Women’s Invitational. Mildred graduated from Beaumont High School in 1929. She once entered in a contest where she threw a baseball 296 feet to win. She opened many doors leading to opportunity. Gold- Javelin Throw- 143’4”, Gold – 80 Meter Hurdles- 11. All of her hard work paid off when she was able to win seventeen amateur tournaments in a row in 1946. She qualified for the Los Angeles (men’s) Open. In 1948, Mildred won the All- American Open, the World Championship and the United States Women’s Open all in the same year. She became the first American to win this event.
In the Olympics of 1932, held in Los Angeles, California, she qualified for five events, but was only allowed to enter into three.
Approximate Word count =
951
Approximate Pages =
4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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