Q&A With Don Van Natta
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If you are in search of the perfect summer biography to sink your beach reading chops into, look no further than Don Van Natta Jr.'s study of the short but incredible sporting life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
A correspondent for the New York Times who has previously written about our golfing presidents in the fantastic First Off The Tee, Van Natta answered questions via email while on tour promoting the release of Wonder Girl. His stops included a Beaumont, Texas visit last weekend on what would have been the Babe's 100th birthday on Sunday. He filed this excellent Times story from Babe's hometown and site of a museum dedicated to her feats.
Van Natta also reads from Wonder Girl and was interviewed by NPR's All Things Considered.
Van Natta sifted through many accounts and remembrances to present a tight, highly-readable and definitive look at a life cut short by cancer at 45, but not before Didrikson-Zaharias had mastered numerous sports and even tried her hand at stage performances. Her golf accomplishments are particularly astonishing: she once won 14 consecutive tournaments, was the first American to win the British Women’s Amateur Championship, first woman to play and qualify for a PGA Tour event, three-time U.S. Women's Open winner, co-founder of the LPGA and winner of the 1953 U.S. Women's Open by 12 after major cancer surgery.
GS: What prompted you to do a book about the life of The Babe?
DVN: In 2004, after publishing my first book, First Off the Tee, I wanted to write another golf book. At the time, I was living in London and considered writing about St. Andrews or, perhaps, the great Bobby Jones. But my friend, Rand Jerris, an author and historian at the United States Golf Association, suggested a biography about Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Babe is Rand’s hero.
I had vaguely recalled hearing Babe’s name from my father, who admired her grit. The more I investigated Babe’s life, the more impressed and inspired I became. She wasn’t just America’s greatest female athlete; she is arguably the greatest all-sport athlete, male or female, in American history. And when I first visited Babe’s hometown of Beaumont, Texas, I was surprised and saddened to see her museum was empty, and would go many days without anyone stepping foot inside. 
Despite her many athletic achievements and super-stardom – and being the top-ranked woman athlete of the 20th century -- Babe had become America’s all-but-forgotten sports superstar. Even in Babe’s hometown, she was largely unknown. Most young people don’t know her name, but when they hear about her achievements, they’re awed and want to know more. During my first visit to Beaumont, I became more motivated to do my best to bring the Babe’s inspirational story to a new generation of readers.
GS: It seems every story about her life and particularly her start in golf has multiple versions, how did you go about researching the book and separating fact from fiction?
DVN: Babe is an enormous challenge to her biographers because she lied about so much of her past history. She told fibs about her age, her background and her athletic achievements. Her 1955 autobiography, “This Life I’ve Led,” is littered with half-truths and fanciful stories. When she died, The New York Times reported Babe was 42 years old (she was, in fact, 45). As an investigative reporter, I saw her story as a challenge to try to separate fact from fiction.
Babe counted on reporters to regurgitate whatever story she told them without looking deeply into her background. And she had the audacity to tell many contradictory stories about how she began golf – from picking up a club on a whim in her early 20s to becoming inspired to play after watching a round played by Bobby Jones. None of these stories were true. The truth had less sparkle: Babe learned to play at a young age at Beaumont Country Club and for two years she was a member of the Beaumont High School golf team.
GS: You open by painting a picture of her vaudeville show and asking the question of whether there was anything she could not do. Was there anything she did not do well?
Only five months after winning two gold medals and a silver at the 1932 Olympic Games, Babe was performing vaudeville because there was no other way for the world’s greatest athlete to make money.
Babe was a multi-sport athlete who excelled at every sport and game she tried. The one thing she was not good at was sportsmanship. She would show up in women’s clubhouses and tell her competitors, “The Babe’s here! Who is coming in second?” When she stepped off the train in Los Angeles before the 1932 Olympic Games, Babe told reporters, “I came out here to beat everybody in sight -- and that’s just what I’m going to do.” Well, the only athletes in sight were her US track and field teammates, who bristled at her declaration.
After helping to create the LPGA, Babe rubbed her leading money-winning success in the noses of her competitors. One golfer, Shirley Spork, another LPGA founder, told Babe, “If it wasn’t for us pigeons, you wouldn’t have a tour.” Babe just laughed, telling Spork and her other fellow golfers: “Let me tell you girls something – you know when there’s a star, like in show business, the star has her name in lights on the marquee? Right? And the star gets the money because the people come to see the star, right? Well, I’m the star and all of you are in the chorus. I get the money. And if it weren’t for me, half of our tournaments wouldn’t be.”
Babe was right, of course. But if she had kept such things to herself, she might have won a few less tournaments and a few more friends.
GS: Her spat with the USGA over amateur status seems so petty, especially when you see today's "amateurs" fully outfitted in logoed clothes and receiving free gear. A recurring theme of the book seems to be the surprising amount of struggle and backlash she received despite her vibrant personality and incredible athletic skills. What do you attribute this to?
DVN: The “amateur” ideal for athletes, who were never paid a nickel to compete, was revered in the 1930s and 1940s. No one tried to uphold this ideal more than the leaders of the Olympics, who stripped the great Jim Thorpe of his gold medals because he was paid a few bucks to play semi-pro baseball. But more than just that was working against Babe. Her poor background and coarse manner offended the wealthy, high-society Texas women who didn’t like losing to Babe in the mid-1930s. After Babe defeated one of those women, Peggy Chandler, in the 1935 Texas Women’s Amateur, Chandler and her friends complained to the USGA that Babe was a professional athlete masquerading as a golfing amateur. This was based on Babe being paid for endorsements and to play semi-pro basketball. The USGA agreed, and disqualified Babe from competing in amateur golf tournaments for three years. The penalty made Babe even more determined to come back and win. It also inspired her to soften her image and her manners in a bid to win acceptance to the gilded golf world that had so rudely snubbed her.
One of the things that most amazes me about Babe was her incredible will to succeed. She was constantly told what she couldn’t do and who she couldn’t be, and she just flat-out refused to listen. This was seen most dramatically after Babe’s cancer diagnosis in 1953. Doctors told her she would never play professional golf again. Babe believed it, at first; she tried to give away her golf clubs to a friend. But she quickly became determined to not only play again but win again. And fifteen months after a colostomy, Babe won the U.S. Women’s Open by 12 strokes at Salem Country Club in Massachusetts. It was one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports. And during her victory speech, she shared in her great triumph with her doctors and the thousands of strangers who wrote her get-well cards and letters. By then, Babe felt as if she was playing to win not only for herself but the cancer patients who looked to her as a strong role model.
Babe’s lessons for young people today are simple: Never give up. Never let anyone tell you who what you should do or who you should be.
GS: She met George Zaharias when she entered the LA Open in 1938 when there weren't any real restrictions, but qualifying in 1945 and making the cut was a genuine accomplishment that essentially was ignored a few years ago when Suzy Whaley and Annika Sorenstam played PGA Tour events. It seems as if the lack of respect for her accomplishments continues. Wouldn't she have her own magazine, ESPN channel and syndicated show if she were around today?
DVN: American sports fans love two-sport athletes. When Michael Jordan retired to play a year of minor league baseball in Birmingham, Alabama, Americans were fascinated by his quest. Never mind that Jordan hit .202 and returned to the hard court to win more NBA championships. Fans were transfixed by a legendary athlete struggling to master a second game. Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders are other two-sport athletes who fired Americans’ imagination.
Well, Babe was an all-sport athlete who conquered every sport and game she played – basketball, track and field, baseball, swimming, tennis, bowling. I agree that there is a startling lack of respect these days for all that Babe had accomplished and had to overcome. If she were around today, she would likely have her own sneaker line, like Jordan, and a syndicated TV show. She would also want to kick everyone’s butts. Babe not only was a great athlete but, like Ali and, more recently, Shaq, she was a born entertainer who knew how to keep the members of the gallery laughing and shaking their heads with wonder.
Here's a link to a book "trailer" featuring some excellent footage of Babe playing golf.
