In Making a Big Leap, Many Helping Hands

In Making a Big Leap, Many Helping Hands

By MICHELLE HISKEY

ATLANTA — When Ralph Boston rehearsed the long jump form that would win him three Olympic medals in the 1960s, he needed only some flat terrain and a soft place to land.

When Mariah Stackhouse practiced the golf swing that would earn her a place in the United States Women’s Open this week as the only African-American qualifier, she needed more than the public golf course her middle-class parents could afford to put her on.

What Stackhouse, 17, ended up with was a country club membership and an influential network of supporters, both acquired in part through the efforts of Boston, 72, who said he recognized in her the drive and potential of Wilma Rudolph and Althea Gibson, star athletes of his era.

“I just remember as I was trying to do my little thing, and as I started to work at it, people would help me and admonish me to pass it forward,” Boston said recently before teeing off at Planterra Ridge Golf Club in nearby Peachtree City, Ga., referring to his early days as a long jumper.

“When I met Mariah, there was a lady running through my mind — my mother, Eulalia,” he added. “She’d always tell me, ‘Whenever you can open a door, you do it.’ So basically I had to help Mariah, because people helped me.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/sports/golf/mariah-stackhouse-has-support-in-womens-open-bid.html

 

Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times

Mariah Stackhouse, who was swinging clubs at age 3, became the youngest Georgia PGA women's champion in 2009, and has accepted an athletic scholarship to Stanford.

 

 

 

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Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times

Mariah Stackhouse with the Olympic champion Ralph Boston, who first met her six years ago.