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Wendy Macpherson, Henderson, Nev., has been selected as the honorary captain of the 2003 Women's International Bowling Congress All-America Team. The 36-year-old right-hander beat out Carolyn Dorin-Ballard, North Richland Hills, Texas, in the 30th annual poll to choose the best women bowlers of the year.

The 2003 WIBC Queens champion collected 90 first-team and three second-team votes from ballots submitted by 100 of the top bowling writers, broadcasters, WIBC Hall of Famers and officials. That gave Macpherson 273 total points based on three points for each first-team vote and one point for each second-team vote. Dorin-Ballard, the 2001 honorary captain, collected 89 first-team and four second-team votes for 271 points.

Macpherson, a 20-time champion, won the 2003 WIBC Queens title for a record-tying third time. She also was third in average at 212.74 and fourth in PWBA earnings with $43,225. Earnings were not included in the voting process.

Dorin-Ballard, 39, a six-time WIBC All-American, finished the 2003 season first in earnings ($53,750), first in average (215.22) and also led the tour with three perfect games. Among her 2003 achievements were runner-up in the U.S. Open and champion of the Greater Cincinnati Open.

Joining them on the first team are: Michelle Feldman, Skaneateles, N.Y. (68 first-team votes, 21 second-team votes, 225 points); Tiffany Stanbrough, Oklahoma City (40, 24, 144); and Kelly Kulick, Union, N.J. (36, 33, 141).

Feldman, 27, the 2002 PWBA Player of the Year, won the 2003 Greater Dallas Open as well as the 2003 WIBC Championship Tournament Classic singles and all-events titles. The right-hander ranked second in earnings ($45,900) and ninth in average (211.21). This is the fourth consecutive year Feldman was named to the WIBC All-America team.

Stanbrough, 25, doubled her career titles in 2003 by winning the Greater Terre Haute (Ind.) Open and the Pepsi Greater Rockford (Ill.) Classic. She finished fourth with a 212.40 average, cashed in seven events and was fifth in earnings ($40,410). Stanbrough is making her first-team All-America debut after making the second team in 2002.

Winning her first pro title at the 2003 Women's US Open, Kulick finished the year with a 209.34 average. The 25-year-old former U.S. Amateur Champion ranked third in earnings ($44,350) with six cashes. This marks her first time as a first-team All-American after making the second team in 2002.

Making the second team are: Cara Honeychurch, Eltham, Victoria, Australia (30, 34, 124); Dede Davidson, Las Vegas (24, 31, 103); Kendra Gaines, Sebring, Fla. (16, 42, 90); Diandra Asbaty, Chicago (16, 35, 83); and Liz Johnson, Niagara Falls, N.Y., (15, 34, 79).

Honeychurch, the 2002 Robby Award recipient, finished 2003 ranking second with an average of 214. Gaines, a four-time Team USA member, returned to the All-America second team after finishing second in the 2003 WIBC Queens. Davidson won the Greater Harrisburg (Pa.) Open and had three other top five PWBA finishes. Team USA's Asbaty, the 1999 U.S. Amateur Champion and the only amateur to make either All-America team, captured the Masters gold medal, along with two silver and one bronze, at the 2003 Federation Internationale des Quilleurs World Championships in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Johnson, a former Team USA member and two-time U.S. Amateur Champion, was second in the WIBC Championship Tournament Classic team event and had two top five PWBA finishes. Players will be honored at the WIBC Queens in May in Wichita, Kan.

She wants to test herself against the best golfers in the world. That, in a nutshell, is why Annika Sorenstam is teeing it up in the PGA Tour's Colonial Invitational in Fort Worth, Tex. this week.

Sorenstam has established herself as the best the LPGA Tour has to offer. Indeed, a case could be made that she is the finest female player in history; at worst, she is one of a handful of players in the last 100-plus years that could claim that distinction.

It would almost be unnatural if she didn't wonder 'How would I do against the guys?' The truly elite athlete wants to test himself or herself against the finest competition available. And there is no question that the finest competition in golf is found on the PGA Tour.

So the 32-year old Sorenstam is taking advantage of an invitation extended by officials at the Colonial and will tee it up on Thursday. She will be playing a course that will play roughly 7,080 yards, a good 600-700 yards longer than the longest courses she plays on the LPGA Tour. She will be hitting from the same tees as her male opponents and hitting into the same greens. Par at Colonial Country Club is 70, and Sorenstam will likely have to shoot something around even par over the first two days of competition to make the 36-hole cut, which, for her would be a major accomplishment.

What she is doing is not without risk, to her own reputation and that of the LPGA Tour. If Sorenstam performs poorly, critics will no doubt remark that her skills are overrated, and that the quality of golf on the LPGA Tour is, at best, second rate.

Any golfer reading this dissertation is well aware that anything can happen in the heat of competition. This is, after all, golf. In spite of her meticulous preparations for this test, Sorenstam could still go out this week and shoot a pair of rounds in the 80s.

But that is a risk she is willing to accept and a challenge she is willing to face. And for that, she should be commended. Sorenstam understands the leap she is making and is fully cognizant of the caliber of play on the PGA Tour.

"I know that I'm coming to a stage that's totally different than I'm used to," she said last week, "a tougher course, tougher competitors, you name it, it's going to be different and obviously I'm aware. But this is just a test for me, I want to see what it's all about, I want to see how good my game is."

So this week she will step into the arena and risk being battered and bloodied, not for publicity's sake (for Sorenstam has never been a player who has sought the spotlight) but simply to answer the question 'How good am I?'

Sometime this week, perhaps Friday night, perhaps Sunday afternoon, Sorenstam will get an answer to her question. And at week's end, we should applaud her for having the courage to search for that answer.

It was a chance to not only play football but to face a new challenge and to make sports history as well. So when the National Women’s Football League opened for business Chris Donnelly signed up.

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Considering her status as one of the top fencers in America, Delia Marshall Turner’s introduction to the sport was somewhat unconventional. But it may have been inevitable.
At age 53, Turner, who trains at the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia, has won five national saber titles in the Veterans (age 40 and over) classification and captured a Veterans world title in that weapon in 2002. But she wasn’t exposed to the sport until her daughter took it up.

Jessica Lewis-Turner eventually became an outstanding college fencer; by then, her mother had made her own mark in the sport.

“We took her to places like Little Rock and Sacramento and all these other places for competitions,” Turner recalled, “and I got kind of weary of sitting there and watching and having no idea of what was going on.”

Out of curiosity Turner, who teaches at The Haverford School, just outside Philadelphia, attended a fencing class for adults at the Academy, taught by veteran fencing master Mark Masters. The session was intended to help parents of young fencers become more familiar with the sport. For Turner, it did far more than that.

“He went through all of the footwork and everything else. Then he suited us up and I got to try to hit somebody and I was hooked That was it… I knew before then that I wanted to do it, but at the end of that day I could feel the aggression and the wanting to hit people. I had the feeling that I might be reasonably good at it.”

That was some 12 years ago and Turner has been infatuated with the sport ever since.

She started out fencing foil, but within two years had switched to saber, a weapon descended from the cavalry sword. To say the least, saber fencers tend to have a more aggressive mindset than their fellows who compete in epee and foil.

"It is a very intense, very fast high-speed weapon in which you absolutely have to commit yourself to the action,” Turner says.

“In saber, even if you’re setting up a false action, even if you’re just tricking your opponent, you’ve still got to make (the action). You can’t do little dinky stuff, you can’t just hang around and bounce, you can’t just flow back and forth, you must commit yourself to the action and that’s always been the way I am. I always say to people, if the saber feels right in your hand then that’s your weapon.”

Saber is a relatively new event for women. Turner began comepting in the event in the 1994-95 season and fenced in her first national championship in 1996, but the event wasn’t contested at the international level until 1999 and wasn’t added to the Olympic program until 2004.

When Turner won her Veterans world title in saber in 2002, it was classified as a demonstration event (it will have full medal status in 2005). In essence, Turner has grown as a fencer as her event has grown in stature.

She says Masters’ support and encouragement has been vital to her success. “I was lucky to have a coach who took me seriously at my age,” she says. “He brought me along and because women’s saber was just starting out.

"I was growing with the sport.”

Today, Turner is ranked third in the United States in the Veterans category, a classification that includes all fencers age 40 and over. In addition to competing in veterans’ competitions, she also fences regularly in Division One (national caliber) events.

When she was in high school Turner’s sports participation was limited because of asthma. But she trained for and competed in a marathon when she was in her 20s so intense training is nothing new to her.

She generally fences two days a week and cross trains two other days in addition to competing. “I understand how to subjugate myself to a training regimen,” she says, “and I understand how long it takes to train because the marathon. That took me months and month and months to train for, and I did exactly what I set out to do."

Of course, Turner’s body doesn’t recuperate from injuries as quickly as it did when she was in her 20s; she’s fenced through injury on more than one occasion, most notably at a national tournament when she competed while suffering from a torn calf muscle.

But while she may not the agility and speed of younger opponents, she makes up for it with her knowledge of the game. “ Once you learn how to do it, craftiness works extremely well,” she says. “And if you train hard and your physical conditioning’s good, so you’ve got craftiness and reasonably good conditioning, you can do pretty good.”

Kim Adler is an American Ten-pin bowling professional who was a member of the now-defunct Professional Women's Bowling Association. She is considered one of the top women bowling players of all time, competing professionally from 1991-2003.

The Ladies Professional Golf Association is the premiere organization behind women’s professional golf. While there are LPGAs in several countries, the United States-based organization is the best known and most influential.

The LPGA Tour gathers an elite group of professional golfers from around the world - from February to December every year - for the sport’s highest caliber women’s events. The tour provides the best opportunities for female golfers in regards to media exposure and cash winnings.

Now the oldest women’s professional sports organization in the U.S., the LPGA was founded by a group of 13 golfers in 1950. In 2010, the total prize money on the LPGA Tour was $41.4 million, awarded through 24 international tournaments. The tour remains strong even though the number of annual tournaments has declined in recent years with the loss of four competitions held in the U.S.

The LPGA’s major tournaments are the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the LPGA Championship presented by Wegmans, the U.S. Women’s Open and the Ricoh Women’s British Open that is held in conjunction with the Ladies European Tour.

Every November since 2006, the LPGA has held a season-ending championship. Through 2008, it was known as the LPGA Playoffs; in 2009 and 2010 it became the LPGA Tour Championship. In 2011, the tournament will be called the Titleholders.

It would be difficult to find anyone who has been more adept than Celita Schutz at matching the mental and physical elements of Judo.

The Westwood, New Jersey, native has over 35 years of experience in Judo including three times at the Olympics - 1996 in Atlanta, 2000 in Sydney and 2004 in Athens. Schutz is now President of Kokushikai, Inc. and is camp director of Kokushikai Judo Camp. She is training the next generation the physical moves and mental discipline that earned her an accolade-filled career in the U.S. and abroad.

“Judo is an individual full contact combative sport,” she said, “and because it is that the nature of it requires that you be very focused and aware of your body and your opponent’s body more so than in other sports that I’ve participated in. If you make a mistake you are the one responsible.”

Schutz took her first lesson at age 6 and was placing in national competition by 14. In 1993, Schutz took home her first major U.S. title. She won her first national championship two years later and added four more between 1997 and 2000.

But she holds her Olympic performances of highest regard.

“There really is nothing that compares to competing in the Olympic Games,” Schultz said. “There is a definite sense of patriotism, because you do want top do the best you can to represent your team and your country. Your family and friends, everybody’s rooting for you.”

Louise Fulton was a giant among bowlers who defined the sport’s best qualities and broke down social barriers as she advanced.

The first African-American woman to win a professional bowling championship, Fulton was posthumously elected to the International Women's Bowling Congress Hall of Fame in 2000. She was the first African-American to receive the honor and one of only six to be inducted.

A native of Kingstree, South Carolina, Fulton didn’t take up bowling until well into her adult life in Pennsylvania. She joined the Professional Women’s Bowling Association in the 1960s after its inception. Fulton’s first and only tour win came at the 1964 Princeton Open. Still, she managed a career high average of 194 with a personal best game of 279 and high series of 741.

Fulton was inducted into the National Bowling Association Hall of Fame, the Western Pennsylvania State Women’s Bowling Association Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania State Women’s Bowling Association Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, she didn’t live to see her induction into the Women’s International Bowling Conference Hall of Fame. Fulton died of cancer in 1988.

She is remembered still as a top competitor who broke down barriers for African-Americans.

Leanne Barrette has left an indelible mark on the world of bowling - in both career wins and professionalism - that has sealed her top spot in the annals of the sport’s history.

Barrette worked her entire adult life to amass an impressive resume that stands apart from many of her peers. She has been to the winner’s circle 23 times as a professional, won the 1999 WIBC Queens title and was named PWBA Player of the Year twice.

But its Barrette’s sportsmanship that truly makes her a stand-out in the sport. She was twice chosen by her PWBA competitors for Robby Awards that recognize sportsmanship and professionalism. But for Barrette, that is just part of who she is.

"It’s not like we’re hitting tennis balls back and forth at one another," she said. "It’s like golf. You post your score and if anybody beats it that’s the way it is. I’ve always felt like I’ve had to have a good image and a good temperament on and off the lanes. It isn’t anything I’ve had to try to do, that’s just the way that I am. I try to be respectful of others."

That attitude - along with a healthy competitive streak - has made Barrette a household favorite. She has made 96 television appearances, thanks to ESPN’s increased focus on the WPBA.