High Point Confidential: Polio-stricken teenage swimmer made big splash in 1941

HIGH POINT — When the National A.A.U. Senior Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships came to High Point’s City Lake Park in the summer of 1941, the decidedly male-dominated world of sportswriters didn’t quite know what to make of the young women competing.

Yes, they were impressive sports figures, but when you read some of the newspaper coverage, it seems the writers were more impressed by the women’s figures than their sports. They routinely sexualized the sport, using such phrases as pretty gals, bathing beauties, mermaids, lovely, a comely lass, a striking beauty and photogenic.