The retired BellSouth manager says she first realized she was an artist in the seventh grade. Temporarily relocated from Jacksonville, FL to a new school in Pompano Beach, she found herself in an art class.  “And I thought, hey! I can do this! This is great!” But a short month later she was uprooted again. This time, there was no art class at her school, and her inner artist took a backseat for the next thirty years.

For a few months in 1972 Olga Korbut was my idol. I spent that summer doing cartwheels in the kitchen and flips on the living room couch. But my mother was more concerned about the furniture than my career as a gymnast, and my dreams of Olympic gold pretty much ended there. Later that year, I fell in love with Chris Evert., but I was equally untalented on the courts. And in 1972, that was pretty much it for female sports role models.

Today, we are living in an era of Sports Divas. Women are playing professional sports in record numbers. They’re getting their own Wheaties boxes, and making the cover of Sports Illustrated (not just the swimsuit issue). And more and more girls are heading to college on athletic scholarships.