Remembering Betty Hicks (1920-2011)

Let’s play a little sports Jeopardy. The category is Women Sports Pioneers.

The answers in this category are:

• Winner of the 1941 U.S. Women’s Amateur Golf Championship.
• 1941 Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.
• Founder of the Women’s Professional Golf Association, the precursor to the LPGA.
• One of the founding players on the LPGA and contemporary of Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
• Professional woman golfer who, along with Babe Didrikson Zaharias, appeared in “Pat and Mike” the 1952 Hepburn & Tracy movie.
• Golf teacher, golf coach, aviator, flight instructor, author and gourmet cook.
• Inductee into the Women Sports Foundation International Hall of Fame


The question for all of these answers is: Who is Betty Hicks?

Betty Hicks was also the first woman athlete to write about lesbian athletes. Her 1979 article appeared in Christopher Street, a now defunct gay publication. I found it in the early 1980’s while doing my own research on the topic. When I had the opportunity to meet this gutsy and accomplished Renaissance woman I jumped at the chance. I was in the process of gathering information and doing interviews for writing Strong Women, Deep Closets, my book about lesbians in sport. I was on sabbatical in California and I called her and introduced myself. She invited me to her home, took me out to lunch and even offered me, basically a total stranger, the use of her car while I was in California. She was a true pioneer in women’s sports. She was a fearless feminist who lived her passion for golf, flying and writing. She inspired me and encouraged me as I struggled through my own self-doubts as a writer.

Betty told me amazing stories about the early days of the LPGA tour and offered insights into how the fear of being called a lesbian haunted the women on the tour during the 1950’s. Remember this was during the McCarthy Era when Senator McCarthy was holding hearings to root out Communists and homosexuals in the national government and other institutions in the U.S. It was the 20th Century version of the medieval witch hunts in Europe and seventeen century United States. Police routinely raided bars frequented by lesbians and gay men, herded the patrons into paddy wagons and newspapers published their names which led to public humiliation, disruptions of personal lives, job loss and terror. The lucky ones escaped out the back door or paid off the police to protect their anonymity.

The last time I saw Betty was about eight years ago when she visited Kathy and I while she was in Boston for some golf business. She hustled us out to the local Stop & Shop to buy the ingredients for the gourmet meal she was planning to cook us. She took over our kitchen and we served as her sou chefs as pots, pans and flour flew. The meal was great and we enjoyed seeing Betty. We just did not know it would be the last time.

Betty was 90 years old when she died this week. Imagine the changes she lived through both in women’s sports and in women’s and LGBT rights. I often think of social change as a relay race with each generation of people running their leg and passing the baton to the next generation with each successive leg of the race building on the hard work and courage of the one before. I like to think I took the baton from Betty and have run my leg in a way that she would be proud of. Tonight, I raise a glass in your honor, Betty. Thanks for being an inspiration and for being my friend.