7 Asian American sports trailblazers who changed the games

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By Sheng Peng

From athletes who broke the color barrier in professional hockey and basketball to multisport stars and hometown heroes, Asian Americans have been a part of the United States’ sporting heritage.

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, NBC Asian America looks back at some of these trailblazers in sports.

Victoria Manalo Draves (1924 – 2010)

San Francisco native Vicki Manalo Draves waits her turn in the high platform diving event in the National AAU women’s competition, Shakamak State Park, Indiana, August 16, 1946. She won the junior women’s three meter competition, and went on to win gold medals for the United States in both platform and springboard diving in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Underwood Archives / Getty Images

The first Asian American Olympic champion, Victoria Manalo Draves grew up in San Francisco, the daughter of a Filpino father, Teofilo Manalo, and an English mother, Gertrude Taylor.

Interracial marriages were frowned upon in those days, and an early coach made Manalo Draves use her mother’s maiden name in competitions.

“When she was young, her mother would say to her and her two sisters, ‘You guys look down at the ground, don’t look up,’” David Lyle Draves, Manalo Draves’ son, told NBC News. “They always had to walk and keep their heads down.”

She also faced a regular indignity when using a public pool — the water would be drained the day after she used it.

“This really hurt my mom,” Draves said. “She would actually go to a pool and compete, and after she got done with the meet, they would empty the water out of the pool.”

source: nbcnews.com