Sports
During World War II, the South Bend Blue Sox All-American Girls Professional Baseball League team was formed in the city. The team participated in all the league's seasons from 1943 to 1954. High School Sports are also a big draw in South Bend.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish provide much of the sports action for the South Bend locale. Football Saturdays have become a major event for the city, attracting fans who come to watch the game and have tailgate parties. Notre Dame basketball games are also popular, along with the other university sports. The College Football Hall of Fame was moved from Kings Mill, Ohio, to downtown South Bend in 1995.
The city has the South Bend Silver Hawks, a Class A Minor League Baseball team, who plays at Coveleski Stadium in downtown South Bend. In 2005 the franchise nearly moved to Marion, Illinois, but a group of investors, led by former Indiana Governor and South Bend Mayor Joe Kernan, bought the Silver Hawks in order to ensure the team stayed in South Bend.
The city also hosts the South Bend Roller Girls, the city's non-profit flat track roller derby league. Founded in March 2010, the league has worked to support fundraising for local charities, such as the Salvation Army's Adopt-A-Family program, the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, and the St. Joe County Humane Society. The South Bend Roller Girls traveling/competitive team, The Studebreakers, is named after the historic Studebaker Corporation. The team is a Women's Flat Track Derby Association Apprentice.
Read more about this topic: South Bend, Indiana
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)
“It was so hard to pry this door open, and if I mess up I know the people behind me are going to have it that much harder. Because then there’s living proof. They can sit around and say, “See? It doesn’t work.” I don’t want to be their living proof.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)
“In the end, I think you really only get as far as you’re allowed to get.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)