Fire on the Track

by Roseanne Montillo

  It didn’t take long for the young girl in Beaumont, and countless other young women across the country, to catch Olympic fever. She vowed to participate in the Games the very next year, to travel around the world, to win a medal, and to have her likeness splashed across every newspaper in the country. Only she didn’t want a picture of herself with pearls dripping from her neck; she wanted one with a medal flashing gold.

  When her father told her that those particular games would not come around again until 1932, the girl, whose nickname was Babe, threw one of her typical tantrums. But, as he often did, her father quickly appeased her. It was a good thing, he insisted; the interim years would give her time to practice, to hone her skills, to ensure victory over the rest of the competitors. Babe agreed, and set her sights on triumph.

  —

  Mildred Ella Didrikson was born on June 26, 1911, in Port Arthur, Texas, the sixth of seven children of Norwegian immigrants. The family moved to Beaumont when she was three years old and lived in the shadows of the Magnolia Petroleum Company’s refinery in the oily grit of the city’s south end—a small, harsh, somewhat bigoted town whose attitudes would quickly become ingrained in Babe.

  In the early 1900s, before the Didriksons’ arrival, Beaumont was a tiny dot on the map that consisted of little more than a few homes lined up along a dry, lonely Main Street, most of whose stores had been boarded up and left to deteriorate by owners seeking better fortune elsewhere. The more successful men in town eked out a living making moonshine, illegal distilleries springing up across its boundary lines, while the rest took odd jobs and handouts wherever they could. Beaumont did have a small school and the requisite coffee shop, called the Black Cat Café, which stood its ground against failure, a place where folks drank their coffee bitter and black, smoked a cigarette or two pawned from a neighbor, read the local paper, and complained about the temperature and the economy.

  The town had had its origins in cattle and lumber, but eventually those businesses, too, left. It was not known for its sports history, nor any history, for that matter. In fact, it was better known for its racial divide and bigotry, the lines that defined whites from everyone else, and the various arguments that erupted on a daily basis. By the end of the 1800s, Beaumont was a dismal community of less than ten thousand people in wait of something bigger, the inhabitants guzzling endless cups of coffee at the Black Cat and discussing the fortunate event that would put them on the map and change their lives.

  Such was their hope as they awoke each morning, and such was their hope on a Sunday afternoon in January 1901 when a man inadvertently struck a pickax into the arid earth of what many considered to be a worthless patch of land south of Beaumont officially known as Spindle-Top. He did so halfheartedly, more out of frustration than anything else, but was rewarded with a large geyser of oil that drenched him in a shiny coat. And it wasn’t long before 100,000 barrels of oil were being churned out every day.

  And so Beaumont grew. Refineries were built as far as the eye could see, the earth poked and prodded for miles around. The tiny town people had yearned to flee suddenly became a hot commodity. The price of land increased, spawning stretches of houses that went up as fast as lumber could be found and nailed together. Men and their families moved in, the booming economy bringing an influx of new blood from all over the country.

  Ole Didriksen came as well. In 1905 the Norwegian man stepped off a tanker in Port Arthur, on the Texas-Louisiana border, a dusty town reeking of oil. For a man accustomed to Norwegian winters and summers cooled off by the breezes of the North Sea, Port Arthur was all but infernal. Yet he liked it—the bustle of the people moving about with purpose, the hardy stench of humidity, human sweat, and the oil distilleries going at full blast; it smelled like prosperity. Ole’s wife, Hannah, and his three children, Ole Jr., Dora, and Esther, were still in Norway. Immigration laws didn’t allow him to bring his family over for three years, and he reckoned that would give him enough time to find a job, make money, and build a house.

  By trade, Ole was a cabinetmaker and furniture rebuilder, just as his father had been, though as a youth he had left his home early on and embarked on a career upon the high seas, spending years sailing around the world and even rounding Cape Horn several times, the vivid recollections of those travels eventually becoming family lore that his children never grew tired of hearing. But now his manual skills came in handy in this new and devilishly hot land.

  As time passed, he framed his new home on 850 Doucette Street. The Magnolia refinery perpetually burped out smoke and fumes from the ugly smokestacks littering the skyline. It was not what Ole had wanted for his family. In his mind, they were going to live in a large, airy home, the children running around and playing in the wide expanse of their backyard, which would be dotted with tall trees and a patch of garden in a corner reserved for Hannah’s laundry line, where her colorful linens would hang listlessly in the region’s breezeless air. But the reality was much different.

  The house Ole built was not large or luxurious, but it had a long wraparound porch he would enclose and turn into an additional bedroom, where his boys would eventually sleep, while the girls would share the only other bedroom in the house. The backyard was only a small, sad square, adjacent to other similar small, sad squares. Even though he routinely drifted through the house, fixing and hammering this or that, plucking nails poking out of the floorboards, or fastening squeaky kitchen cupboards, the fact would always remain: the house was too small and too crowded, and it could not grow any further.

  Hannah Marie Olsen Didriksen and the children arrived from Oslo on a humid day in August 1908. A small, trim woman, she had during her childhood enjoyed sports, particularly figure skating and skiing, two winter activities her country was famed for. But she soon learned that there were no such pastimes in her new American home. As she disembarked in the United States, she tried to shield her eyes from the vicious sun. She stared at the refineries. There was a stickiness in the air and an odor that got to her right away. She felt it on her skin and in her throat, and the taste of oil never left her mouth.

  Hannah was only five feet, four inches tall, very thin, and had a tendency to carry herself in the style many referred to as that of an athlete. (Several family members later suspected that Babe had inherited her athletic abilities from her.) Hannah did not speak or understand English and for the rest of her days would always have a problem with the language. But her small stature and poor English hid an inner complexity, toughness, and resolve few ever glimpsed.

  In 1909, twin babies arrived, Lillie and Louis, the first Americans born to the family. And in June of 1911, Mildred Ella, to be known as Babe, made her appearance. No more babies came for a few years; thus Babe reveled in her nickname, which she held on to for the rest of her life.

  Babe was raised no differently from her brothers, and it showed in her attitude, speech, and dress. Little girls were supposed to be quiet, delicate, prim, proper, and clean, but Babe was rude and loud and spewed obscenities and racial slurs she’d picked up from the adults around her, particularly toward the colored inhabitants of her neighborhood. She was seldom seen in anything but her brothers’ short pants, which, like her bare feet, were always caked in mud. Neighbors didn’t like her and thought of her as a gritty girl from the wrong side of town (not that Beaumont had a good side). They warned their children (who had already come to fear the saucy little girl) to stay away from her. And though her mother wished she’d behave and dress more like a lady and watch her tongue, Ole did not mind. Nor did he mind the fact that she stood up for herself against the boys and could usually do things better than they could.

  Attuned to Babe’s inner turmoil, Ole installed parallel bars, short obstacle courses, and a collection of weights in the small backyard behind their house. The tiny exercise field gave the children an opportunity to leave the confines of the tight house, to play, and to breathe the mucky air. Babe and her sister ran there, Lillie preferring smooth, flat terrain, while Babe made ex
uberant attempts to fly over the neighbors’ hedges. Some hedges were taller than others, and the disparity caused her to develop a unique jumping style that forced her to crook her left knee; that style would remain with her, though it was later frowned upon.

  Though the house lacked space, it did have plenty of windows, which every Saturday needed washing. It was on Babe and her sister Lillie that the weekly chores fell, so while the neighborhood children whose parents were better off spent their Saturdays at the cinema, for years Babe crawled on her hands and knees mopping floors and polishing windows. As she did so, she’d watch her mother beat the laundry—not only theirs but also other families’, as she took in soiled washing to earn extra money. Her father’s job as a furniture refinisher brought in about two hundred dollars a month. It wasn’t terrible money back then, but with seven children, there never seemed to be enough.

  Babe would recall the discipline she had learned, which she’d apply to other areas of her life, too. But she knew she wanted a different life from her mother’s and assured herself that she would never be scrubbing someone else’s dirty underwear for a living. In Norway, Hannah had been full of joy, Ole always said. But Texas wore her out; the lines on her face were evidence of that. Babe resolved that she would never allow her own face to tell the same story.

  —

  Dangling from the parallel bars in the backyard or sitting on the front steps of her house, Babe watched the neighborhood girls play their games, not with jealousy but with an expression of contempt that would accompany her throughout her life. Sissies, she thought; their girly games were just signs of weakness. She didn’t have the time or the inclination for hopscotch or those stupid dolls of theirs, much less for the tiny plastic teacups in which they served imaginary beverages to one another. “I preferred baseball, football, foot walking, and jumping with the boys,” she later explained. “I guess that habit of playing with the boys made me too rough for the girls’ games. Anyhow, I found them too tame.” She learned to shoot a rifle with the same expertise as any of the men in Beaumont. And as she grew, her intent became clear: sports were not only her preferred activity; they would also allow her both to stand out from the crowd and to eventually get away from Beaumont.

  She attended the Magnolia Grade School, then the South End Junior High School, arriving at Beaumont High School with a reputation, especially her hankering for always wanting to pick a fight. She made no friends, feeling that she had nothing in common with her schoolmates, particularly the girls. She knew that some had dreams of a college education, followed by jobs that would make use of their studies. But for Babe, studying was useless. She had no intention of going to college, much less of finding a husband and birthing a pack of children. She joined the basketball team, the Miss Royal Purples, the only girls’ team at Beaumont High, and, given that school never had a real place in her life, her grades reflected that fact: she merely kept them above the minimum required to allow her to play sports.

  —

  On a bleak February night in 1930, a cold rain whipped down over the city of Houston. Colonel Melvirne Johnson McCombs, who managed a Dallas insurance company’s athletic program and who was in Houston for business, was stranded in his hotel room by the weather when he picked up a local newspaper. He was cheered to read that a basketball game between two local girls’ teams was taking place in a nearby auditorium. He recognized the name of one of the players, as he had been reading the latest newspaper articles and had started keeping tally on a girl who had been averaging more than thirty points per game, crushing the competition. Papers had been bragging about the local all-state athlete, and he had wanted to meet her for some time. Settling his Stetson onto his head, he headed out into the elements.

  Looking every inch the “Colonel,” as people referred to him, McCombs was a graduate of Texas A&M, where he had played baseball and basketball and had some success in track and field. He had followed his studies with a stint in the US Army Reserve but eventually became known to his acquaintances as much for his sense of duty as for his talent in scouting female athletes. His hair was now gray and short, cut in the military style he had favored during his army days (maintained by biweekly trimmings at a local barbershop); that, together with his tall, erect figure, gave an impression that he was devoid of any sense of humor. In truth, he was, though on occasion he would let out a barrage of sarcastic comments meant to be humorous but that came across only as biting. He now managed the Safety Department for the Employers Casualty Company and since 1925 had also been in charge of the company’s athletic department, which included a semiprofessional female basketball team, the Dallas Golden Cyclones.

  McCombs had initially utilized his talents as a coach in male teams all over Texas and Oklahoma. He had developed a keen eye for spotting real athletic talent; he knew ahead of his time that female athletes were also gifted with such capacity and often wondered why schools didn’t take advantage of that pool of candidates. Most of his acquaintances were not even remotely interested in women’s sports and declared them useless, but McCombs believed otherwise. He was the first coach in history to trade his team’s uniform of long woolen bloomers, baggy blouses, and long stockings for lighter, shorter, cooler clothing. He recognized the former ensemble as too cumbersome for an athlete to play in, much less perform well.

  —

  Having made his way to the local auditorium to watch the girls’ game, he stood in the bleachers and, as often happened on such occasions, felt a tingle run down his body. The discovery of new talent was visceral for the Colonel.

  After the game, he followed the girl wearing a Beaumont High blouse with the number 7 stitched on her back to the rear of the auditorium. He found Babe chewing on two chocolate cream cakes and guzzling down a large container of chocolate milk. She was not very tall, standing no more than five feet, five inches, and probably weighed about a hundred pounds. A long scar ran down her right leg, a reminder of a childhood accident when, on a dare, she had jumped from a roof and a piece of scraggy wood had pierced the flesh. She looked ordinary, with sharp, angular features and a thin aquiline nose that the papers would later compare to a hawk’s. A high forehead framed short, dark hair that fell over chestnut-colored eyes.

  The Colonel introduced himself, gave her a vigorous handshake, and told her why he was there. Never stopping to clear the chocolate crumbs from her lips or to wipe away a chocolate mustache, she told him, in her heavy Texas twang, that he should meet her parents.

  The following day McCombs arrived on dusty, smelly Doucette Street in a big yellow Cadillac, immediately impressing Ole and Hannah. He brought the smell of money and opportunity. Babe’s parents greeted the Colonel as they always greeted visitors: by leading him toward the large kitchen table to partake in the Swedish meatballs Hannah had prepared. McCombs tilted his head toward Ole, while still keeping Hannah in the conversation, and promised them that if Babe was allowed to join his team—an all-female basketball team much in need of new talent—she would become a national champion and would never lack for money. For two immigrants who barely spoke English and whose conversations often revolved around finances, the idea of a child of theirs making good in America was beyond appealing.

  Babe recognized this as a pivotal moment that could change the circumstances of her life. When McCombs left and the family was alone, she began to plead her case. She wouldn’t even quit school, she told them; she would leave for just a few months to join the team until the end of the season and then return to Beaumont High to graduate. She directed her efforts toward Ole, who could never resist her begging and pouting. Although Hannah felt that Babe was too young to go out in the world alone, Ole gave in, even agreeing to travel to Dallas, some 275 miles from Beaumont, to help her settle in.

  —

  Babe’s first appearance for the Golden Cyclones occurred on February 18, 1930. She had found a uniform in a pile of used ones with the number 7 stitched on the back—the same number she had worn in high school—and claimed it as her ow
n. Her teammates weren’t particularly friendly, but then, neither was she. Still, those “husky” girls seemed to resent her before their first game even started.

  She entered the basketball court with typical dramatic flair, waving her arms and smiling from ear to ear. Outfitted in new uniforms, the team played against the Sun Oil Company team and beat it soundly. That was only the beginning. In the span of six games, Babe scored 195 points (a precursor to her being named all-American, twice).

  As the team played more games, she became its standout, and people began talking about her, stunned not only by her gamesmanship but also by her brash personality. Newspapers and radio stations across Texas carried reports of her winning streak as a member of the Golden Cyclones. The games were heard on the radio throughout Texas, and in the region she became known as “Mighty Mildred.” The articles splashed her picture front and center, relegating her teammates to the background. The taste of fame, if only regional, brought her closer to her goal of becoming rich and famous. She basked in the publicity, and it soon became apparent that her talents eclipsed those of all her teammates combined—a fact they somewhat appreciated, since she propelled them to win more games, but privately envied.

  In fact, her teammates nurtured a fervent dislike for her; they thought this small girl from a backward town with a loud mouth and an oversized attitude was too strong-willed, too rough and insensitive, too uncouth. She had a penchant for cussing and a robust dislike for anything resembling authority. It was hard to reconcile that she was simultaneously an athletic asset and a burden to the team, especially when she felt no loyalty toward the others. She measured her success not by how many wins the team accumulated but by how many points she scored and how many times her name was mentioned in the newspapers, a preoccupation that grew with each game.