THE NEBRASKA 100

Louise Pound humiliated men almost a century before Michelle Wie was born.

She was a multi-sport phenomenon before Babe Didrikson-Zaharias. Not bad for a woman who didn't put half the time into athletics she did into education.

Pound, who acquired her college degree at 19, may be better known for her 50 years in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English department than her backhand. Few could argue, though, she was the dominant Nebraska female athlete of her era.

"She was supremely self-confident at a time when women were waiting to be told what to do," said Evelyn Haller, a Doane College English professor who has studied Pound. "She had an unusual spirit of intense competition about everything she did."

Pound was the Nebraska women's state singles tennis champ in 1891 and 1892. Those same years she captured the University men's singles and doubles titles. As a result of her Western amateur win in 1897, she was rated the top player in the country.

She was a figure skater. She skied. She once cycled 100 miles in 12 hours. She managed the Nebraska women's basketball team. Pound was ranked the top woman golfer in Lincoln between 1901 and 1927, and won the first state women's tournament in 1916.

"Most of that time, I held the championship," she said in a 1945 newspaper account. "But I didn't always enter. I never cared so much for golf."

--Dirk Chatelain