Famous Women WGS 199
Babe Didrickson Zaharias
Gained fame in 1932 in Olympic track and field but she also played basketball, golf, baseball, softball, was an expert diver, roller-skater, and bowler. She won two gold medals (hurdles and javelin) and one silver medal (high jump) in the 1932 Olympics. In 1938 she played in a PGA event (that's a pro men's golf tournament) and she missed the cut, but later she made the cut in every PGA Tour event she entered. A founding member of the LPGA, won 41 LPGA events and 7 other golf championships. She was named the 10th Greatest North American Athlete of the 20th Century by ESPN and the 9th Greatest Athlete by the Associate Press. Was inducted into the women's golf Hall of Fame in 1951 and has a museum dedicated to her in Texas and numerous golf courses named for her. Broke the accepted models of femininity, including the "accepted models" of female athleticism. Standing 5'7" and weighing 115 lbs, was physically strong and socially straightforward about her strength. Although a sports hero to many she was also derided for her "manliness"
Kathryn Switzer
The first official woman to run the Boston Marathon, though the race officials didn't know she was a woman as she registered for the race as K. Switzer. She ran the Boston Marathon again this year at the age of 70!
Bobbi Gibb
The first woman known to have run the Boston Marathon. She ran it as a non-entered participant after receiving a denial of her application in 1966 in which the race organizers told her it was a men's only event and women were incapable of running a marathon. She showed up to run and just stepped into the race when about half the entrants had crossed the starting point. She ran again in 1967 and 1968. She was the Grand Marshall of the 2016 Boston Marathon.
Serena Williams
is No. 1 ranked player in women's singles tennis. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has ranked her world No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions. Williams is regarded by some commentators and sports writers as the greatest female tennis player of all time. Williams holds the most major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined amongst active players, male or female. Her record of 38 major titles puts her fourth on the all-time list and second in the open era: 22 in singles, 14 in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent female player to have held all four major singles titles simultaneously (2002-03 and 2014-15) and the third player, male or female, to achieve this record twice after Rod Laver and Steffi Graf. She is the only tennis player - female or male - to have won singles titles at least six times in three of the four Grand Slam tournaments. She is also the only tennis player to have won 10 Grand Slam singles titles in two separate decades. Williams holds the Open Era record for most titles at the Australian Open (6) and shares the Open Era record for most titles at the US Open with Chris Evert (6). She has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles with her sister Venus, and the pair are unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals. Williams is also a five-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships. Serena has also won four Olympic gold medals, one in women's singles and three in women's doubles—an all-time record shared with her sister, Venus. Serena was the highest paid female athlete in 2016, earning $28.9 million in prize money and endorsements. In December 2015, she was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine.
Tara Ann VanDerveer
is a basketball coach who has been the head women's basketball coach at Stanford University since 1985. VanDerveer led the Stanford Cardinal to two NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championships: in 1990 and 1992. She stepped away from the Stanford program for a year to serve as the U.S. national team head coach at the 1996 Olympic Games. VanDerveer is the 1990 Naismith National Coach of the Year and a ten-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year. She is also one of only six NCAA Women's Basketball coaches to win over 1,000 games. COACHING: In her interview at Idaho, when asked what she was going to do to be successful, she responded "work". When they asked her to elaborate, she responded, "hard work". She got the job. Stanford - overall record 828-174 (.826) and 2-time National Champions (90 & 92); conference champions 16 times. Olympic coach - was the coach for a full year, the team went 60-0 preparing for the 1996 Olympics and won the gold medal.
Sue Enquis
is a former softball player and coach. She played softball at UCLA 1975-1978. She helped lead UCLA to its first national softball championship in the 1978 Women's College World Series and became UCLA's first All-American softball player. Her career batting average of .401 was the UCLA team record for 24 years. She also played for the Raybestos Brakettes and helped lead the team to Amateur Softball Association national championships in 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1980. Enquist joined the coaching staff of the UCLA softball team in 1980. She was an assistant coach under Sharron Backus from 1980 to 1988. In 1989, she was appointed as the co-head coach with Backus, a position she held for eight years from 1989 to 1996. Following Backus's retirement, Enquist became the sole head coach at UCLA in 1997, a position she held for ten years from 1997 to 2006.[2] In 18 years as the co-head coach and sole head coach at UCLA, Enquist compiled a record of 887-175-1. Her career winning percentage of .835 is the highest recorded by any of the college softball coaches with 800 career wins. During her years as a player and coach at UCLA, the Bruins softball team won 11 national championships from 1978- 2004. Enquist has been honored with inductions into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006, and the UCLA Hall of Fame in 1993.
Pat Head Summitt
was an American college basketball head coach whose 1,098 career wins are the most in NCAA basketball history. She served as the head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team from 1974 to 2012, before retiring at age 59 because of a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. She won eight NCAA championships (an NCAA women's record when she retired), a number surpassed only by the 10 titles won by UCLA men's coach John Wooden and the 11 titles won by UConn women's coach Geno Auriemma. She was the first NCAA coach, and one of four college coaches overall, with at least 1,000 wins. Summitt also won two Olympic medals: a gold as head coach of the 1984 U.S. women's basketball team and a silver as a player on the 1976 team. She was named the Naismith Basketball Coach of the Century in 2000. In 2009, the Sporting News placed her at number 11 on its list of the 50 Greatest Coaches of All Time in all sports; she was the only woman on the list. In 38 years as a coach, she never had a losing season. In 2012, Summitt was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2012 ESPY Awards.
Althea Gibson
was an American tennis player and professional golfer. In 1956, she became the first person of color to win a Grand Slam title (the French Open). The following year she won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals (precursor of the U.S. Open), then won both again in 1958, and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived," said Robert Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. In the early 1960s she also became the first black player to compete on the women's professional golf tour. She also became the first black woman to appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated and Time. At a time when racism and prejudice were widespread in sports and in society, Gibson was often compared to Jackie Robinson. "Her road to success was a challenging one," said Billie Jean King, "but I never saw her back down." She sometimes had to enter a country club -where a tournament was being played- through the back door. She couldn't use the locker room or have dinner at the club, and after winning the tournament, she'd have to leave through the back door." "I am honored to have followed in such great footsteps," wrote Venus Williams. "Her accomplishments set the stage for my success, and through players like myself and Serena and many others to come, her legacy will live on."
Wilma Rudolph
Was considered the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s and competed in two Olympic Games, in 1956 and in 1960. In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games - in the 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 m relay. The powerful sprinter emerged from the Rome Olympics as "The Tornado, the fastest woman on earth". As a member of the black community, she is also regarded as a civil rights and women's rights pioneer. Following the post-games European tour by the American team Rudolph returned home to Clarksville. At her wishes, her homecoming parade and banquet were the first fully integrated municipal events in the city's history. [This means she was gracious enough to invite white people to her celebration...otherwise it would have been an all Black affair. No white person in her hometown had ever extended this kind of invitation to their Black neighbors]. She elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States. Along with other 1960 Olympic athletes such as Cassius Clay (who later became Muhammad Ali), Rudolph became an international star due to the first international television coverage of the Olympics that year. She overcame a premature birth (4.5 lbs), scarlet fever, and infantile paralysis brought on by the polio virus. She had to wear a leg brace for 5 years and an orthopedic shoe for another 2 yrs - but went on to become the fastest woman alive.
Lynette Woodard
a basketball player who played at the University of Kansas where she scored the most points in college women's basketball history (3,649) and did the same with field goals made (1,572). After graduation, Woodard headed to Europe, where she played two years in the Italian women's league and led all players in scoring. In 1984, she captained the women's Olympic team to a gold medal. With the conclusion of the Olympics, so came the apparent end to Lynette Woodard's career. Seeing no chance to play professionally in the U.S., she headed back to Kansas and landed a job with the women's basketball program at her old school, the University of Kansas. In 1985, the Harlem Globetrotters added her as the first female player to its roster, and Woodard was selected to join the team and played with them for two years. In 1997 she signed on to play in the newly formed WNBA, playing two seasons. Overall, Lynette Woodard has been inducted into 10 different halls of fame, including the Naismith Hall of Fame (2002), Women's Basketball Hall of Fame (2005), and the African-American Sports Hall of Fame (2006). Following her permanent retirement in 1999, Woodard returned to the University of Kansas as an assistant coach for the women's basketball team. In 2004, she filled in as the team's interim head coach, after her predecessor was forced to step down for health reasons.
Martina Navratilova
is a retired Czech and American tennis player and coach. In 2005, Tennis magazine selected her as the greatest female tennis player for the years 1965 through 2005 (40 yr span). Navratilova was World No. 1 for a total of 332 weeks in singles, and a record 237 weeks in doubles, making her the only player in history to have held the top spot in both singles and doubles for over 200 weeks. She was year-end singles No. 1 seven times, including a record five consecutive years. She won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 major women's doubles titles (an all-time record), and 10 major mixed doubles titles. She reached the Wimbledon singles final 12 times, including nine consecutive years from 1982 through 1990, and won the women's singles title at Wimbledon a record nine times, including a run of six consecutive titles -the best performance by any professional player at a major event. She and Billie Jean King each won 20 Wimbledon titles, an all-time record. Navratilova is one of just three women ever to have accomplished a Career Grand Slam in singles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles (called the Grand Slam "boxed set"). Navratilova holds the records for most singles titles (167) and for most doubles titles (177) in the open era. Her record as No.1 in singles (1982-86) is the most dominant in professional tennis. Over five consecutive seasons, she won 428 of 442 singles matches, averaging fewer than 3 losses per year to 87 wins, for a sustained winning percentage of 96.8%. She recorded the longest winning streak in the open era (74 consecutive matches). She was ranked in the world's top 10 in singles for a record 20 consecutive years (1975-1994), a span which included 7 years as the world No.1 ranked singles player. Originally from Czechoslovakia, she was stripped of her citizenship when, in 1975 at the age of 18, she asked the United States for political asylum and was granted temporary residency. At the time, Navratilova was told by the Czechoslovak Sports Federation that she was becoming too Americanized and that she should go back to school and make tennis secondary. Navratilova became a US citizen in 1981, and on January 9, 2008, she re-acquired Czech citizenship.
