BHS Day 23: Ora Washington

Hi! For our last Sports Spotlight in this year's series we're focusing on a sport I don't often feature. Funny enough, there are more sports I don't watch or am not familiar with than sports I like or watch on my overall list. lol Basketball is one of the sports I haven't featured too often over the years, so I wanted to make sure I covered it at least once during this year's series. We're closing things out with another trailblazer, another name that unfortunately seems lost to history, both due to time and with the general downplaying of female basketball stars and pioneers. Let's get into it!

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Name: Ora Washington, 1898-1971

Profession: Multi-sport athlete (basketball and tennis)

Why is the Spotlight on her today? For her simultaneous achievements at a professional level in two sports, for her contributions to the future of Black women in professional sports

Notables:

--Was known in her lifetime as the "Queen of Tennis"

--Quickly established herself as a force in tennis and went undefeated for a number of years

--Is said to be some inspiration behind the increase of public tennis courts in the States during her career

--Held a total of 23 national tennis titles throughout her career

--Played basketball for nearly 20 years, some of which was concurrent to her tennis career

--Began playing basketball while actively playing tennis, playing different positions and even doing a stint as coach to her team

--Was the star of her team and her dominance in both sports is still noted today

--Was posthumously honored with a historic marker at the Germantown Y, where she first began playing tennis

--Retired from tennis twice, once being lured back by a new challenger then pushed back into retirement, this one permanent, by those worried for up-and-coming players having to match her in a game

--Won her singles and doubles tournament titles simultaneously

--Was posthumously inducted in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

--Was posthumously inducted in the Black Athletes Hall of Fame

--Dealt with segregated play for her entire career and was never able to definitively declare herself the best tennis player in the country as she was not allowed to play against Whites

--Was posthumously inducted in the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame

Further reading and resources:

1 | 2 | 3

Quotes of the Day:

“They say she was an all-around athlete who had speed and a smashing serve. But racial barriers were too strong to break during her day, so many of her achievements were never acknowledged.”

-Charlie Mays

"The idea, typically, for female athletes is — the best strategy is you play hard. But the second you get off the court, you put your lipstick on, you fix your hair up and you talk about how much you’re doing this until you can get married and have a family like every other normal woman. That's very much a strategy."

-Pamela Grundy

Today's organization: NAACP Legal Defense Fund

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What does this organization provide? Advocacy and legal support for inequality in America. They work to defend and protect equality laws and mandates, improve the quality of the candidates put in public offices, and ultimately seek to improve the legal structure of our country through both the courts and school. It continues the core values of its parent organization, NAACP, through the legal system. 

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See you tomorrow!