Anya Alvarez
©2016, The Shadow League
By all accounts, Molly Schiot never intended to be a sports historian. As a director based out of Los Angeles, her credits include witty films, music videos, commercials, and even a character as a housewife in a short film called Wonderfluff Sandwiches.
So when she ventured to write “Game Changers: The Unsung Heroines of Sports History,” she stepped outside of her comfort zone.
It all began when she ran across a story about African American women in Washington D.C., who founded the Wake-Robin Golf Club in 1937.
“The Wake-Robin story was the foundation to my journey into women’s sports,” Schiot said.
The Wake-Robin founders pushed to desegregate public golf courses in the D.C. area by drafting and sending a petition to Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes. To help pacify their needs, Ickes approved construction of a 9-hole course of an abandoned landfill area in 1939.
While this course provided a place for African Americans to play golf, the women of Wake-Robin continued to push Secretary Ickes towards desegregation. In 1941 he issued an order to make all public golf courses open to all.
For full story… TheShadowLeague.com
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This story originally appeared on TheShadowLeague.com, a site dedicated to journalistically sound sports coverage with a cultural perspective that insightfully informs sports fans worldwide.
