When we talk about female athletes of the mid-1900s who broke through gender barriers, we tend to make their stories into ones of pure triumph. And triumph they did.

            But I’ve become curious about their entire lives. What happened when they came to the end of the paltry opportunities they had in pre-Title IX days?

            Some women fared better than others.

Didrikson the dame

            Let’s look at Babe Didrikson, who we talked about last week. At the 1932 Summer Olympics, she won gold in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin, and silver in the  high jump. She had wanted to enter all five events she qualified for, but at the time, women were only allowed to enter three events. Because, of course, women are fragile!

            She could have chosen almost any sport. She excelled at basketball, swimming, diving, riflery, handball and boxing. She even pitched in a few spring training Major League Baseball games.

            Yet the sporting world wasn’t ready for women in professional sports.

            Sportswriter Joe Williams conceded that Didrikson was a talented amateur, but opined that women don’t belong in professional sports. They can’t break male records and they can’t make the same money male athletes can, he argued — Didrikson was just “cheapening herself” by trying.

            “But let the dame play all the amateur golf she wants to,” he shrugged. “By now, she must have learned there is no money in feminine athletics.*

            Fortunately, Didrikson did turn to professional golf and won 10 LPGA major championships. In her career as a golfer, she brought in a comfortable income. Her best year was 1950, when she entered the U.S. Open, the Titleholders Championship, and the Women’s Western Open, which made her an earnings leader. She was a leading earner again in 1951.

            From then on, illness hobbled her, although she still performed well. But in 1938, she had married wrestler George Zaharias, which no doubt brought her an extra measure of financial stability.

Gibson’s struggle

            It was a different story for tennis player Althea Gibson, who we also talked about last week.

            In 1950, at age 23, Gibson became the first African American player to compete at the U.S. National Championships (the U.S. Open). She was the first African American woman to win major titles: the French Open in 1956, and Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals in 1957 and 1958.

            But racial bias meant that many white players refused to compete with or against her. Discrimination even affected her game — coaches taught her to play any balls within two inches of a line to avoid conflict with opposing white players.

            When Gibson retired from amateur tennis in 1958, she had made almost no money from it. And with no channel to pursue pro tennis — professional tennis tours for women didn’t fully start until 1973 — she struggled to earn a living.

            No one was interested in her as a tennis pro. Race had a lot to do with that, she knew.

             “To hail my talents in public doesn’t cost anything, but to hire a Negro — and a Negro woman at that — to teach white club members called for a bigger expenditure of courage than most club owners were willing to make,” Gibson said.**

            She tried her hand at golf, as Didrikson had, but it didn’t work out. She played exhibition matches on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters, tried life as a singer, coached a few promising players and ran tennis clinics for children in underserved neighborhoods. 

            But by the mid-1990s, Gibson was sick, alone and living in poverty. She told her best friend, fellow Black tennis player Angela Buxton, that she was going to kill herself.

            “She was calling to say goodbye,” Buxton said. “I said, now wait just a minute.”***

            Through a tennis magazine, Buxton arranged a fundraiser, and money poured in. Gibson went on to have another ten years.

            Gibson lived until age 76, a long time to struggle with income insecurity. And who knows what would have happened for Didrikson? She died at age 45 at the height of her fame and what little fortune she enjoyed. Had she lived longer, her story might have ended much differently.

                                    ____________________________________

* Joe Williams, “Let Her Play Golf, Even If She Is a Pro,” New York World Telegram, reprinted in the Oklahoma News (May 15, 1935), p. 9. In the article, he quotes an earlier, undated column of his.

** Alicia Ault, “Althea Gibson’s Momentous Achievement,” Smithsonian (June 1, 2021), quoting Ashley Brown, a University of Wisconsin historian who is writing a biography of Gibson.

*** Althea Gibson, “Tennis Star Ahead of Her Time, Gets Her Due at Last,”New York Times (August 26, 2019).