Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Babe Didrikson Zaharias trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Babe Didrikson Zaharias trivia quiz covers the woman the Associated Press named athlete of the half-century and of the whole 20th century. The early questions deal with her Norwegian immigrant parents in Port Arthur, Texas, the childhood nickname borrowed from Babe Ruth, her prowess at sewing and the harmonica, the insurance-company basketball team that made her a star, and the day she won the 1932 AAU track championship as a one-woman team. The middle of the quiz turns to the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and her medals in the hurdles, javelin and high jump, the jump-off technicality that cost her a third gold, the ugly train incident with two Black teammates, her spring-training innings for the Athletics and Cardinals, and her switch to golf: the 1938 Los Angeles Open, the three PGA Tour cuts of 1945, the amateur streak, the British Ladies title, the founding of the LPGA and the 1950 Grand Slam. The last questions cover her marriage to wrestler George Zaharias, her partner Betty Dodd, the colon cancer she fought publicly, the U.S. Women's Open she won a month after surgery, her death at 45 and the honors that followed. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia article on Babe Didrikson Zaharias.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Besides sport, in what domestic skill did Babe compete, making many of her own golfing outfits?
Sewing
She said she won the sewing championship at the 1931 State Fair of Texas; in fact she won at a smaller fair, embellishing the story years later.
Q 02Babe recorded several songs for Mercury Records. Which instrument did she play?
Harmonica
Her biggest seller was 'I Felt a Little Teardrop', backed with 'Detour'.
Q 03In which Texas coastal city was Mildred Ella Didrikson born in 1911?
Port Arthur
She was the sixth of seven children; the family moved to Beaumont when she was four.
Q 04From which country had Babe's parents Hannah and Ole emigrated?
Norway
Her three eldest siblings were born there; she later changed the spelling of the family name from Didriksen to Didrikson.
Q 05She claimed her nickname honored which slugger, after she hit five home runs in a childhood game?
Ruth
Her Norwegian mother had in fact called her 'Bebe' since she was a toddler.
Q 06What was the profession of George Zaharias, whom Babe married in December 1938?
Wrestler
They had been paired together at a men's PGA event eleven months earlier and were married in St. Louis.
Q 07Babe's family moved when she was four to which Texas city, where she is buried?
Beaumont
She repeated the eighth grade there and eventually dropped out without graduating after moving to Dallas to play basketball.
Q 08Babe Didrikson took her first job as a secretary at what kind of Dallas business just to play on its basketball team?
An insurance company
Employers' Casualty Insurance Company employed her only so she could play as an amateur on its industrial team.
Q 09What was the name of the Dallas company basketball team Babe led to the 1931 AAU championship?
The Golden Cyclones
She was a three-time AAU All-American in basketball from 1930 to 1932.
Q 10Babe won the 1932 AAU team title single-handedly. In how many of the ten events did she compete?
Eight
She won five outright and tied for first in a sixth, enough to beat every full team entered.
Q 11Babe's first 1932 Olympic gold came in which event, with a world-record 11.7 seconds?
80-meter hurdles
She had already equaled the world record of 11.8 seconds in her opening heat.
Q 12Babe's second 1932 Olympic gold came in which throwing event, with an Olympic-record 43.69 meters?
Javelin
She set four world records at the Games in total.
Q 13Officials ruled Babe's high-jump technique improper in a jump-off. Which American teammate took the gold?
Jean Shiley
Both cleared a world-record-tying 1.657 metres before the bar went up to 1.67 for the jump-off.
Q 21What distinction did Babe earn by entering three men's professional events in 1945?
Only woman to make a regular PGA Tour cut
She finished 33rd at Phoenix and tied 42nd at Tucson, and got into the fields through 36-hole qualifiers rather than sponsor's exemptions.
Q 22In 1947 Babe became the first American to win which championship?
The British Ladies Amateur
She had won the U.S. Women's Amateur the year before, then formally turned professional in 1947.
Q 23Babe's run of consecutive women's amateur tournament victories, never equaled, reached what number?
17
Q 14Which event did Babe NOT compete in at the 1932 Olympics because Lillian Copeland beat her at the trials?
Discus
Copeland went on to win the Olympic gold medal in the event.
Q 15Babe is the only track and field athlete to win individual Olympic medals in which three types of event?
Running, throwing and jumping
Two golds and a silver at Los Angeles in 1932 make up the unique set.
Q 16Why did Babe Didrikson throw water on teammates Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes on a train before the 1932 Games?
They were Black
Pickett and Stokes were replaced by white athletes who had qualified with slower times.
Q 17After the Olympics Babe toured with a famous bearded barnstorming baseball team. What was it called?
House of David
She also fronted her own Babe Didrikson's All-Americans basketball team and performed on the vaudeville circuit.
Q 18In January 1933 Babe badly lost a multi-day New York match against Ruth McGinnis in which game?
Straight pool
She was a competitive pocket billiards player, though never a champion.
Q 19Which men's PGA tournament did Babe enter in January 1938, missing the cut?
Los Angeles Open
No woman played against men in that event again until Annika Sörenstam, Suzy Whaley, Michelle Wie and Brittany Lincicome almost sixty years later.
Q 20To regain her amateur status in golf, Babe had to compete in no other sport for how long?
Three years
She got amateur status back in 1942 and then dominated the amateur game.
By 1950 she had won every golf title available to her.
Q 24Counting amateur and professional events, how many golf tournaments did Babe win in total?
82
Forty-one of those were LPGA Tour wins, including 10 majors.
Q 25Charles McGrath wrote no golfer was more beloved by the gallery, 'except perhaps for' whom?
Arnold Palmer
She was America's first female golf celebrity and the leading player of the 1940s and early 1950s.
Q 26In 1948 Babe applied to qualify for the U.S. Open. What happened?
The USGA rejected it, saying the event was for men only
A 2020 opera, Par for the Course, dramatizes her reaction to that rejection.
Q 27Pitching for the Athletics against Brooklyn in March 1934, Babe Didrikson escaped the inning with what rare feat?
A triple play
She gave up one walk and no hits in her one inning of spring-training work.
Q 28Which Hall of Fame pitchers reportedly taught Babe Didrikson to throw a curve before she pitched for the 1934 Cardinals?
Burleigh Grimes and Dizzy Dean
Boston scored three runs off her before Bucky Walters flew out to Joe Medwick to end the inning.
Q 29Babe is still recognized as the world record holder among women for what baseball feat?
Farthest throw
She spent time with a barnstorming team and pitched two scoreless innings for the Cleveland Indians in a 1934 exhibition.
Q 30In which year did Babe complete the Grand Slam of the three women's majors then played?
1950
The sweep made her the leading money-winner that year, and again in 1951.