Women Sport Memoir

"Poignant, philosophical, humorous, and wise. A part handbook on hockey and a part political satire, Charns’s latest book is both wholly hilarious and deeply reflecting. The narrative straightaway delves into prejudice based on gender, especially in the field of ice hockey, and the story that follows is periodically interrupted by Charns’s hilarious tips on the vigorous sport as he narrates his family story, including his son and daughter’s passion for the sport and his missteps as a hockey dad and husband." The Prairies Book Review. The excitement started when a hockey playing ...

Texas girl Babe Didrikson never tried a sport too tough and never met a hurdle too high. Despite attempts to keep women from competing, Babe achieved All-American status in basketball and won gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics. Then, Babe attempted to conquer golf. One of the founders of the LPGA, Babe won more consecutive tournaments than any golfer in history. But at the height of her fame, she was diagnosed with cancer. Babe would then take her most daring step of all....

Elizabeth Clor wanted nothing more than to qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon. Dead-set on achieving this goal, she found herself bound up in a vicious cycle of perfectionism and anxiety that thwarted her at every turn, despite making significant gains in her physical abilities over seven years. Boston Bound is the story of how Elizabeth discovered that her own brain was the culprit, and explains the steps she took to completely overhaul her mindset about her running and her life.

In 1958, while flying from one island to another, Audrey Sutherland sees the remote and roadless northeast side of Molokai, with its spectacular sea cliffs and waterfalls. Always an adventurer, she decides that she must find a way to explore this then inaccessible area. After much study, she determines that the best way for her to navigate these treacherous sea walls is to swim while towing an inflatable kayak. This is the story of fulfilling her dream, of planning then implementing, of launching and advancing, of retreating and reconnoitering, of challenge and success.

In 1975, a group of amazing women rowed their way to international success and glory, battling sexual prejudice, bureaucracy, and male domination. Among the members of the first international women's crew team - and one of the first women's teams anywhere - were Gail Pearson, the soft-spoken MIT professor who fought to win the political battles necessary for her team to succeed; lead rower Carie Graves, a statuesque bohemian from rural Wisconsin who dropped out of college and later became the most intense rower of the crew; and Lynn Stillman, a tiny 16-year-old, Californian coxswain.

Confessions of a Timid Rider is a memoir detailing one woman's insights into being an anxiety-ridden but passionate equestrian. After returning to riding as a mother, she is determined to follow her dreams despite the fear she is somehow lacking in talent or ability. An in-depth look into the heart and head of a returning adult equestrian and mother, this message is not limited only to those with horse experience.

When Chloe Dalton was eight years old, she would practise her goal kicks in the half-time break of her brothers' rugby matches, all the while telling impressed onlookers: 'Girls don't play rugby.' Sixteen years later, Chloe Dalton won Olympic gold playing rugby sevens for Australia and is now a fixture in the AFLW. In 2020, she started her own news platform, The [Female] Athlete Project, because while she was surrounded by women achieving incredible things in sport, nobody was hearing about them.

Telling the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team's story in expert prose, Pride of a Nation is a lavish tribute to one of the most beloved teams in sports, revisiting their historic four World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals, as well as unforgettable players across the generations, such as Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Abby Wambach, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, Briana Scurry, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Sophia Smith, Rose Lavelle, Catarina Macario, Mallory Pugh, and more.

I’m only in my mid-twenties, and some might think that’s young to write a memoir. Who does that, right? But for me and my team it’s always been important to reflect on every part of the journey, especially the end. In that context, the timing is perfect to share my story, from the first time I picked up a racquet as a 5-year-old girl to the night I packed up my tennis bag after winning the 2022 Australian Open.

"Work hard, and don't look for excuses", C. Vivian Stringer's parents told her, "and you can achieve anything." But her faith and perseverance would be tested many times. A gifted athlete, she had to fight for a place on an all-White cheerleading squad in the 60s. In 1981, just as her coaching career was taking off, her 14-month-old daughter, Nina, was stricken with spinal meningitis. Yet Stringer brought a small, poor, historically Black college to the national championships.

At age twenty-seven, and more than a decade into her modeling career, Mia Kang found herself in Thailand, standing at the edge of a Muay Thai gym thousands of miles from her New York apartment, watching fighters she didn’t know spar and sweat. As she stood there, something primal came over her—the desire to fight. What began as a short vacation to escape the toxic world of modeling became the start of an incredible journey that would forever change Kang’s relationship to food, to her body, and to her own sense of self.

Beth Mead is one of the world's most talented female footballers - Golden Boot winner and Player of the Tournament at the UEFA Euros 2022, Arsenal Player of the Season 2021-22, and nominee for the 2022 Ballon d'Or. But long before this, Beth was just an ordinary kid from Hinderwell, North Yorkshire who wanted to play football.

Tia Toomey, the world's fittest woman, has won the CrossFit Games an incredible six years in a row and is undeniably a true warrior. She has also trained for the Winter Olympics in bobsledding, competed in the Summer Olympics in weightlifting and was a Commonwealth Games gold medalist. She is, in short, one of the most accomplished and dominant athletes in human history. But for Tia physical fitness is only a small part of overall strength. More important is building mental toughness. In The Heart Is the Strongest Muscle, Tia shows how she reached elite levels by focusing on her "why."

Keira D’Amato was an all-American runner who used to chase success. But after being injured in her early twenties, she assumed her running career was over, and settled into life as a military spouse and mother of two young children. In her early thirties, she found herself overweight, out of shape, and battling postpartum depression. She knew that improving her fitness would make her feel better, and told herself to just get out and run ninety seconds, down her street and back.

In Misdiagnosed for Miles, Tammie L. Robie shares her eye-opening journey as a competitive marathon runner battling an undiagnosed medical condition. For two decades, Tammie endured debilitating symptoms, including uncontrollable hypertension, chronic headaches, heart palpitations, and bouts of depression and anxiety, all while striving to maintain her passion for running. Despite seeing numerous healthcare professionals, her condition remained a mystery.

When Susan quit her job in London and set sail off the south coast of England on her beloved sailboat, Isean, she was unaware this spontaneous departure would lead to a three-year journey spanning several countries across the continent. With only the very basics on board, resourcefulness becomes an unexpected source of joy and contentment. But for all the physical and navigational challenges of her journey, the other side of her story reveals a more important change - an inner journey - that took place along the way.

Virtually every big name in wrestling in the second half of the 20th Century crossed paths with "Ms. Christine," as she was known to most. If they followed her rules, Christine "Teeny" Jarrett probably taught them a thing or two about staying out of trouble and saving money for a rainy day. If they got out of line, they likely faced The Grip. Over the course of her 50-year career in wrestling, Teeny worked her way from selling tickets in the back of a Nashville, Tennessee shoe store to running a network of towns for Nick Gulas and Roy Welch...

Who was Alice Marble? In her public life, she was the biggest tennis star of the pre-war era, a household name like Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. She was famous for overcoming serious illness to win the biggest tournaments, including Wimbledon. She was also a fashion designer and trendsetter, a contributor to a pioneering new comic called Wonder Woman - and friend to the biggest names in Hollywood and society, like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, and members of families named Bloomingdale, Loew, and du Pont.

By age seven, Rebecca Quin, now known in the ring as Becky Lynch, was already defying what the world expected of her. Raised in Dublin, Ireland in a devoutly Catholic family, Rebecca constantly invented new ways to make her mother worry - roughhousing with the neighbourhood kids, getting older and hosting secret parties while her parents were away, enrolling in a warehouse wrestling school, nearly breaking her neck and almost kneecapping a WWE star before her own wrestling career even began - and she was always in search of a thrilling escape from the ordinary.

A Different Kind of Daughter tells of Maria's harrowing journey to play the sport she knew was her destiny, first living as a boy and roaming the violent back alleys of the frontier city of Peshawar, rising to become the number one female squash player in Pakistan. For Maria, squash was more than liberation - it was salvation. But it was also a death sentence, thrusting her into the national spotlight and the crosshairs of the Taliban, who wanted Maria and her family dead. Maria knew her only chance of survival was to flee the country.