Quiet tragedy behind Babe's heroics and tomboy brags

Across the width of Texas. Talk about your many toils, dangers and snares. You could be arrested for carrying a book down here, assassinated for merely having an Irish name. It's widely known that a man can suffer discrimination and social isolation for not marrying a blonde, he can be snickered at for not beginning all sentences with the words "how 'bout them Cowboys?" and will be denounced as gauche if he's never brought a date to dinner and an execution, the old eat now, fry later combo. All the way across Texas to the seething town of Beaumont. The best thing Beaumont has going for it is its proximity to Louisiana, its bizarre shot at public art in the form of the world's biggest water hydrant and its relationship to one of the greatest athletes ever, Babe Didrikson. If Babe had been lucky enough to hail from anywhere except Beaumont, East Texas they'd have renamed the town after her. Kids would go to Babe College with student loans from the Babe Community Bank, hoping someday to work in the offices downtown at Babe Central.

Instead what Babe gets is a rinky dink little museum-cum-tourist information centre on the interstate. It's designed as one circle in the Olympic rings and staffed by a fretful librarian on day release. That is all Babe gets, that and a lot of coughing whenever her name is mentioned. Seems like Babe's epic versatility didn't stop when she left the sporting arena. In Texas they don't hold with such things. Pity. Babe Didrikson is an all singing, all swaggering wonder of her age. Hiding her deprives kids of a hero who could boast like Muhammad Ali and run like Jesse Owens. Before there ever was a Marion Jones, there was a Babe and she went higher, faster and stronger in just about every direction. We've brought the two chisellers (chislerettes, if you must) to the alarmingly small museum to furnish them with such a hero and introduce them to alternative lifestyles which don't involve expensive wedding receptions. It becomes clear that we'll be succeeding only in the first matter. The sisters will have to find out for themselves about the other stuff. Babe is a hit. Her comic book heroics, her Zelig-like presence in the annals of just about every sport, her pathos-filled husband, it's all too good to be true. We splash three bucks a head for Babe Didrikson souvenir medals. We are your disciples. By our tackiness you shall know us, oh Babe. Born Mildred Ella Didrikson to Norwegian immigrant parents in the year 1911 (if you believe the records ) or 1914 if you believed herself, she grew fast and strong and as a bonus she could brag better than anyone in Texas. Babe was a harumscarum tomboy who ripped the place up. She could find a way to humiliate anyone, and like all the best boasters she knew that it wasn't boasting if you could do it. For instance, Babe went to the 1932 Olympic trials in Chicago as a one-woman team and bawled to the other 250 competitors during the starting ceremony: "Ah'm gonna lick you all."

She did. She entered eight of the 10 events, won five of them, set world records in four, and placed in three. All in the space of three hours. Although she could sprint 100 yards in under 11 seconds, she didn't bother with the Olympic sprints events as she found running in itself boring. She qualified for five Olympic events and won the team event, scoring 30 points. Illinois Athletic Club, with a team of 23 women, came second with 22 points. It was described then and remains "the most amazing series of performances ever accomplished by any individual male or female in track and field history."

On her way to the LA Olympics the following week, she jumped off a train in Albuquerque New Mexico and nicked a Western Union bike to ride around the snoozing town, shouting: "You all ever hear of Babe Didrikson? If you haven't you will!" Olympic rules required that she could only compete in three events at the Games. That was only the start of the larceny. She won two golds and was deprived of a third when her high jump style was deemed illegal on her final jump. A half-guilty Olympic movement minted her a unique gold and silver medal and admitted the jump as a world record. It would be a remarkable story if it ended or even begun at the Olympics. She was the Associated Press Athlete of the Year six times, still a record for either men or women. Her first award was in 1931, her final one in 1954. She died two years later. What makes Babe Didrikson's story an epic of the 20th century was the breadth of her accomplishment and the quiet tragedy of her life and death.

Before the Games she was established as one of the best basketball players in the country and had been an All America selection for the previous three years. After the Games when amateurism could no longer contain her ambition, she toured with professional baseball and basketball teams, played exhibition billiards and discovered professional golf. Earlier, her amateur ban had precluded her from taking on the genteel amateurs. "They didn't want me to beat the rich dames," she said. She would become not merely the greatest female golfer of her time, winning 82 tournaments including 17 on the trot, but she would leave a tremendous legacy as a cofounder of the LPGA. In the museum there are plentiful pictures of her astounding golfing career. In one she dispenses tips for the dames, rich or otherwise. "You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it."

The site of her home at 564 Daucette can still be seen, but the house was raised 30 years ago. The street still runs tight to the Beaumont Oil refinery, a monstrosity which defines the area's character as much as Didrikson ever did. It's a poor neighbourhood and they reckon that 20 families lived in her house since Babe ruled the block. Nobody cares too much.

Her tragedy was her inability to accept herself fully. Texas has always been especially hard on horses and women and Babe is the proof. Cruel questions about her gender and her sexual orientation dogged her from early on and she was so troubled by both the innuendo and what was in her own mind that she constructed a petite sewing and knitting alter ego for media consumption. As the years passed, she spoke less and less about her Olympic achievements, as they co-incided with the most intense and painful questioning.

Late in life, while still married to the professional wrestler George "The Weeping Greek from Cripple Creek" Zaharias, she appears to have enjoyed a happy and full relationship with her friend and protege Betty Dodd. The little museum which opened 20 years after Babe's death from cancer has clipped Betty Dodd out of history. You'd have to root around elsewhere if you were to learn that Babe's two singing appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show in New York weren't solo gigs. Betty played as part of a partnership that was broken only in death.

If Babe never gathered the courage to confront the world on her own terms she can be forgiven. They were different times. They brought her back to bury her here in Beaumont. Her grave stands in the family plot near the country club, marked by a pedestal with an open book on top bearing lines written by her friend the sportswriter Grantland Rice. "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." A final snowjob from the woman who couldn't see any point in playing if she wasn't going to win. And just in front of her grave, a Texas Historical Marker stands bearing a different date of birth, the one Babe gave herself for marketing purposes. In this small broiling town it takes a dead hero to leave you smiling.