YA-Despite a jocular title, this is an excellent reference source and a good read. Soccer, basketball, baseball and softball, tennis, golf, figure skating, gymnastics, and track-and-field as well as canoeing, kayaking, rowing and sailing, equestrian sports, and ice hockey are all included. Jane Leary's chapter on gymnastics offers interviews with such familiar personalities as Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton, and Kerri Strug. It is enlightening to read their maturing analysis of what the sport has done for and to them. The quality of writing in the different sections varies but each writer is well connected with her field and all give a good background history as well as an assessment of current developments in the sport. Controversial issues are not ignored, and lesbianism is addressed. Throughout, the book celebrates the achievements of "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias and her glorious careers in a variety of sports. Her ebullient personality is highlighted as is her message "If I can do it, so can you."-Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Female sportswriters present 13 narratives--each on a particular sport and focusing on top female athletes such as Babe Didrickson Zaharias, Billie Jean King, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Sheryl Swoopes. Sports covered include kayaking, equestrian sports, soccer, and ice hockey, as well as tennis, golf, swimming and the like. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Calling on female sportswriters from Sports Illustrated, the Miami Herald, the New York Times, and other publications, Smith has assembled a motley collection of 13 essays, each sketching the development of a particular women's sport.
Each writer's brief history includes profiles of its early heroines and its present stars. In some, such as Jean Weiss's "Rhapsody in White," on skiing, the writer's familiarity with and love of the sport make for a genuinely interesting piece. Others, such as "The History of Women in Track and Field," by Kathleen McElroy, are as prosaic as their titles, with all the excitement of an encyclopedia article. Even the remarkable Babe Didricksen Zaharias , who turns up in other essays on baseball and golf, seems less than three-dimensional in McElroy's account. What does come across in many of the essays is how WWII opened a window of opportunity, albeit a temporary one, for females to make their mark in traditionally male sports. More important, however, was Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions, which has given a significant boost to female athletic programs.
Despite its nonspecific title, the history related here is one seen through American eyes. With some exceptions, Sonia Henie in ice skating, Martina Navratilova in tennis, Nadia Comaneci in gymnastics, when other countries' women athletes are mentioned, it is usually in relation to their American competition. As in men's sports, success is measured not just in Olympic medals and Wheaties box fame, but in the dollar value of product endorsements, e.g., sneaker commercials. In that respect, it seems, the story of women in sports is just beginning.
Even with its shortcomings, this collection serves well as a reminder of how brief a time it has been since only "tomboys" developed muscles, sweated, and played to win.