TELESIDE, U.S.A.: DARE TO COMPETE: THE STRUGGLE OF WOMEN IN SPORTS

By Al Mattei

Founder, TopOfTheCircle.com

Home Box Office has lumped a number of documentaries into an occasional series called "Sports In The 20th Century." In early March, the cable network debuted its second documentary with a particular focus on women in athletics.

"Dare To Compete: The Struggle of Women In Sports" is a linear, focused history of important incidents in women's sports history: the 800-meter run in the 1928 Olympics, the formation of the AAGPBL during World War II, Babe Didrikson Zaharias' courageous performance in the 1954 U.S. Women's Open, Billie Jean King beating Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match, the passing of Title IX, and the immense performances of several American women's teams in the 1996 Olympics.

It is a complement to a previous HBO documentary, interviewing a number of championship figure skaters over the years. Given that fact, these athletes have taken somewhat of a backseat in "Dare to Compete."

The 90-minute show, to its credit, goes further in its credit to athletic performances and stories which have been known to but a very few. For example, there was the story of the several all-women's one-day track competitions, starting in 1922 ,which called themselves "Olympic," since women were banned from the marquee track events at the Olympic Games until the 1930s.

At the same time, women's baseball was thriving thanks to several "Bloomer Girls" baseball squads which represented major cities like New York and Philadelphia.

Stories were told about several women in minor and Negro league baseball, as players like Toni Stone, Jackie Mitchell, and Mamie "Peanut" Johnson plied their trade more than 40 years before Ila Borders and the Colorado Silver Bullets.

In addition, rare film was shown of women's track and field at Tennessee State University, an historically black college which was the class of American sprinting for some 44 years. Tennessee State was the school that produced Olympic gold medalists Wyomia Tyus and Wilma Rudolph.

Aside from these stories and others, "Dare to Compete" has a symbolic theme. The acceptance of women in athletics likened to running a marathon. And, harmonious to this theme, is the acceptance of organizers of track events to allow women to run distances as long as the marathon.

The fact that a handful of finishers in the 800 meter final at the 1928 Olympics collapsed after crossing the finish line shocked some people, and resulted in women being held back in terms of the distances over which foot races were contested. For many years, the longest Olympic distance women ran was 400 meters.

The focus shifted to the all-male Boston Marathon, where two women in the 1960s -- Bobbi Gimm and Katherine Switzer -- overcame many obstacles to run the race. Eventually, there was a triumph in this race: in the 1984 Summer Olympics. It was a triumph on two counts: Joan Benoit's stunning victory in front of her home country, and 37th-place finisher Gabrielle Andersen-Scheiss stumbling across the finish line, reminiscent of the handful of tired 800-meter competitors in 1928.

Instead of newspaper columnists shaming the athletes for pushing themselves so hard, as was the case in 1928, the Andersen-Scheiss incident was instead one of courage and guts. As Switzer so elegantly put it, "Women were finally allowed to be exhausted in public."

Switzer and some 30 other contributors were interviewed for the documentary, which had its moments of praise for some athletic endeavors. However, there was one major shortcoming: the insinuation that the game of field hockey and its playdays were antithetical to the women's sports movement.

In one portion of "Dare to Compete," the words of writers Frank Deford and Mary Carillo said that, while African-American women were participating in more sports in the 40s and 50s, and progressing in sports like basketball and track, white women were participating less, and in seemingly less important events. The visuals: old film of field hockey, archery, and badminton.

In another segment, field hockey film was used in a segment saying that in the 60s and 70s, interest in certain women's sports was piqued only once every four years.

Names like Constance Applebee (who brought the game to the United States in the early 1900s), Barbara Longstreth (one of Team USA's all-time greats), and Tracey Fuchs (the highest scholastic scorer in American history) are never mentioned.

Certainly, there are parts of American women's sports history which cannot fit into a 90-minute presentation. But to classify field hockey with badminton and archery -- two activities which do not have an NCAA championship -- truly is a denial of the sport's importance in American women's sports "herstory."

In addition to the slight given to field hockey, there was no mention of Smith College as a pioneer of women's basketball: credit is instead given to Vassar, Stanford, and Cal-Berkeley. There was also virtually no mention of softball, especially the new Women's Professional Fastpitch and amateur softball teams like the Raybestos Brakettes.

And this, while figures like pro wrestler Mildred Burke and roller derby participant Joan Weston were documented.

The documentary is, to be sure, a flawed portrait of American women's sports history. It does not capture the imagination or stir the spirit like the classic "When It Was A Game," but it certainly merits not only a look, but perhaps some revisions in the near future. After all, in the modern women's sports movement, history of some kind is being rewritten every day.