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Before Sally Ride became America’s first woman in space, she was an accomplished college tennis player who considered turning pro. Ride decided instead to earn her doctorate in physics and later to join NASA, but athletics remained important to her throughout her life.
Now Tam O’Shaughnessy, Ride’s life partner, has endowed a national award in Ride’s name honoring an outstanding scholar-athlete. The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Sally Ride STEM Award recognizes a female college tennis player who plans to pursue graduate studies in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Ride would have been delighted with the award’s inaugural winner, California Institute of Technology tennis standout and recent grad Anna Tifrea, O’Shaughnessy said.
For one thing, Tifrea got her bachelor’s degree in physics,…
