Bobbie Rosenfeld

Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld (December 28, 1904 – November 14, 1969)<ref name="sr" /> was a Canadian athlete, who won a gold medal in the 4 × 100-metre relay and a silver medal in the 100-metre at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. She was a star at basketball, hockey, softball, and tennis; and was called Bobbie for her "bobbed" haircut.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1949, named Rosenfeld the "Canadian woman athlete of the half-century."<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> The Bobbie Rosenfeld Award is named in her honour. In 1996, she was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Rosenfeld, who was Jewish,<ref>Toronto Jewry. The Canadian Jewish Chronicle. September 28, 1928</ref> was born on December 18, 1904, in Ekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (now Dnipro, Ukraine).<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name="sr" /> When she was an infant, she immigrated to Barrie, Canada with her parents and older brother.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> Her father, Max Rosenfeld, operated a junk business and her mother Sarah, who gave birth to three more girls, ran the home.

Fanny attended Central School and Barrie Collegiate Institute, where she excelled in sports, including basketball, softball, lacrosse, hockey, and tennis.<ref name=":1" />

In 1922, the Rosenfeld family moved to Toronto,<ref name=":0" /> where Fanny worked at a chocolate factory.<ref name="sr">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref>

Rosenfeld died on November 13, 1969,<ref name="sr" /> in Toronto and is buried at Lambton Mills Cemetery in Humber Valley Village.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Athletic career

Rosenfeld played and competed in numerous sports, including track and field, ice hockey, basketball, fastball, softball, lacrosse, golf, speed skating, and tennis. When commenting on Rosenfeld's diverse sporting career, one author wrote, "The most efficient way to summarize Bobbie Rosenfeld's career... is to say that she was not good at swimming."<ref name=":2" />

In 1949, Rosenfeld was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame,<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1" /> one of the first women to receive the honor.<ref name=":1" /> In 1950, she was "bestowed the Canadian woman athlete of the first half-century award."<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />

In 1978, The Canadian Press began presenting the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award,<ref name=":1" /> an annual award given to Canada's female athlete of the year.

Basketball

After Rosenfeld's family moved to Toronto in 1922,<ref name=":0" /> she joined Toronto's Young Women's Hebrew Association (YWHA) and was a center for their basketball team.<ref name=":0" /> That year, the team won both the Toronto and Ontario championships.<ref name=":0" />

Hockey

Rosenfeld was a hockey player in the 1920s and was dubbed superwoman of ladies' hockey.Template:Citation needed In 1924, she helped form the Ladies Ontario Hockey Association (LOHA).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Rosenfeld competed on a championship hockey team after debuting as a track and field athlete at the 1928 Summer Olympics.<ref name=":2" /> She was a centre on the 1927 and 1929 Ontario champion Toronto Patterson Pats,Template:Citation needed which were part of the North Toronto Ladies' City League. She was considered the most outstanding women's hockey player in all of Ontario between 1931 and 1932.Template:Citation needed

Softball

Rosenfeld competed on a championship softball team after debuting as a track and field athlete at the 1928 Summer Olympics.<ref name=":2" />

Tennis

In 1924, Rosenfeld claimed the title of the Toronto Ladies Grass Court Tennis championship, despite having only just taken up the sport.Template:Citation needed

Track and field

In 1923, Rosenfeld's softball teammates encouraged her to enter a track competition at a sporting carnival in Beaverton.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> She entered a Template:Convert dash and defeated the Canadian champion, Rosa Grosse.<ref name=":0" /> Later that year, she began training more intensely and competed at the Canadian National Exhibition,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> as well as Ontario’s first women's track and field championship.<ref name=":1" />

At the 1925 Ontario Ladies Track and Field championships, in a single day performance, Rosenfeld placed first in discus, shot put, Template:Convert dash, low hurdles, and long jump, and placed second in the javelin and Template:Convert dash.Template:Citation needed In the mid-1920s, she held national records in the Template:Convert open relay with a CNE relay team, as well as in the standing broad jump, discus, javelin, and shot put.<ref>Bibliography in Jewish Women Encyclopedia</ref>

Olympics

During the trials for the 1928 Summer Olympics, Rosenfeld set numerous Canadian track and field records. These records included the running broad jump, standing broad jump and the discus.Template:Citation needed Her time in the 100 metres was four-fifths of a second slower than the world record at that time.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She later competed as a sprinter in the 1928 Olympics, the first Games in which women were allowed to compete in track and field.<ref name=":1" /> Her team won a gold medal in the 4 × 100 m relay. She received a silver medal in the Template:Convert dash<ref name=":1" /> and placed fifth in the Template:Convert dash.<ref name=":2" /> She "scored more points for her country than any other athlete at the Games, male or female."<ref name=":2" />

Retirement

One year after competing in the Olympic Games,<ref name=":2" /> Rosenfeld developed severe arthritis,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The condition forced her to stop competing in 1933,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> though she continued to be involved in sports as "a coach, executive or manager to various women's sports teams."<ref name=":1" />

Sport involvement

In 1934, Rosenfeld was coach of the Canadian women's track and field team at the British Commonwealth Games in London, England.Template:Citation needed

From 1934 to 1939, Rosenfeld was president of the Ladies Ontario Hockey Association.<ref>Coast to Coast:Hockey in Canada to the Second World War, p.138, Edited by John Chi-Kit Wong, University of Toronto Press, 2009, Template:ISBN</ref> By late 1936, she served as the organization's president, secretary, and treasurer.<ref>Coast to Coast:Hockey in Canada to the Second World War, p.145, Edited by John Chi-Kit Wong, University of Toronto Press, 2009, Template:ISBN</ref> From 1937 to 1939, she also served as president of the Dominion Women's Amateur Hockey Association, following Myrtle Cook-McGowan and succeeded by Mary Dunn.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Free access</ref>

In the spring of 1939, Rosenfeld was the manager of Langley's Lakesides softball team. The team played an exhibition game in front of 14,000 fans at Madison Square Garden.<ref>Immodest and Sensational: 150 Years of Canadian Women in Sport, M. Ann Hall, p.47, James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Toronto, 2008, Template:ISBN</ref>

Journalism

In 1937, Rosenfeld turned her attention to journalism.<ref name=":2" /> She worked as a sports columnist for The Globe and Mail for approximately twenty years,<ref name=":2" /> advocating for greater participation of women in sports and more girls' physical education programs in schools.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1937, she introduced a column called "Feminine Sports Reel,"<ref name="sr" /> where she "covered not only sports news, but also countered the stereotype that sports made women unfeminine."<ref name=":1" /> For 18 years, Rosenfeld covered women's sports.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her last column appeared on December 3, 1958, but she continued to work for the newspaper until 1966.Template:Citation needed

Quotes

"Athletic maids to arms! ... We are taking up the sword, and high time it is in defense of our so-called athletic bodies to give the lie to those pen flourishers who depict us not as paragons of feminine physique, beauty and health, but rather as Amazons and ugly ducklings all because we have become sports-minded." – Fanny Bobbie Rosenfeld (Jewish Women's Archives)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards and honours

• 1924 – Toronto grass-courts tennis championship titleTemplate:Citation needed
• Five first place and two second place titles at Ontario Ladies' Track and Field ChampionshipsTemplate:Citation needed
• World record (since broken), Template:Convert. dash (11.0 seconds)Template:Citation needed
• 1931 – Leading home run hitter in softball leagueTemplate:Citation needed
• 1931–32 – Most outstanding woman hockey player in OntarioTemplate:Citation needed
• 1949 – inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of FameTemplate:Citation needed
• In 1949, The Canadian Press named Rosenfeld the Canadian Woman Athlete of the Half-Century.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• In 1996, she was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Legacy

Salmon Run sculpture in Bobbie Rosenfeld Park

• 1976 – recognized by the Canadian Historic Sites and Monuments Board as a national historic personTemplate:Citation needed
• 1991 – Bobbie Rosenfeld Park – a park and open space located between the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower in TorontoTemplate:Citation needed
  • City of Toronto government plaque honouring the athlete in a planter at the foot of the CN Tower.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref>
• Government of Canada plaque at Allandale Recreation Centre in Barrie, Ontario, in honour of the athlete who settled and grew up in the city.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• 1996 – commemorative stamp issued by Canada PostTemplate:Citation needed
• The official website of the 2012 Summer Olympics states her as the first Ukraine-born gold medal winner.<ref>Ukraine Template:Webarchive, Official website of the 2012 Summer Olympics</ref>
• Bobbie Rosenfeld trophy awarded by the Canadian Press each year to Canada's Female Athlete of the Year.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

• List of select Jewish track and field athletes

Books

• Anne Dublin, Bobbie Rosenfeld: The Olympian who Could Do Everything, Second Story Press, Toronto, 2004, code Template:ISBN
• Cruxton J Bradley and Wilson, W. Douglas "Spotlight Canada: Fourth Edition"

External links

• Fanny "Bobbie" Rosenfeld in Jewish Women Encyclopedie, 2005
• Bobbie Rosenfeld goes for the gold
• Template:Cite web
• Template:Cite web
• Template:Canada's Sports Hall of Fame
• Fanny Rosenfeld at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• Bobbie Rosenfeld, Greatest Sporting Moments, Virtual Museum of Canada Exhibit
• Template:Team Canada
• Template:Olympics.com
• Template:Olympedia