Issue link: https://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/1323883
9 Promotional poster from the 1950s. unafraid," she recalled, seated on a sofa in the two-story house she and her late husband of 60 years, George, bought in 1999 in Hoover that had a basement they converted into a room for her book collection. "My cousin came home after World War II and brought a pair of water skis from Lake Tahoe in California … and I fell and fell and fell." The foot-holders were too big for Rawls' little feet, which made it next to impossible for her to control the skis. Jack didn't understand the problem and told her he wouldn't buy better skis until she mastered the ones she'd been given. The rest of his life, Jack would apologize for that misunderstanding, but eventually when Leah was able to handle the big skis, he went to Fred Sington Sporting Goods in Birmingham and bought her the best pair in the building. Her father's miscue would soon be forgotten, as Leah became more adept at skiing, leading the Rawlses to let her go to Orlando, Florida, during her early teenage years to train under Rollins College coach Henry Suydam. When she returned to Alabama, she practiced year-round, in the winter wearing her dad's cut-off pajamas closed off with rubber bands around her ankles to ward off the cold. From 1951 through 1959, Atkins dominated the women's water skiing world, winning major championships that required mastery of the competition trio of tricks, ramp jumping and slalom course accuracy. During the 1950s, she won the world championship, leaped a world record 70 feet, married Auburn football star George Atkins and had her first child, Tim, who later teethed on the ski ropes dangling in their boat. She received her bachelor's degree in history in 1956. Legendary Auburn football coach Shug Jordan always insisted Leah bring her trophies to his office. They became good friends after George returned to AU as an assistant coach following a season playing for the Detroit Lions. George and Shug's Tigers won the national championship in 1957. All the while, Leah continued in school at Auburn University, and after earning her master's degree in history in 1960, called it quits on the skiing circuit. She had two more children before deciding to do what no one had ever done at Auburn: earn a doctorate in history. Her paper "Southern Congressmen and the Homestead Act" was accepted and she became Dr. Atkins in 1974. She notes that it is a "no-no" in the academics world to earn all three degrees from the same institution, "but I was raising babies, taking care of George, so it was fine with me." Atkins was a world champion water skier.