Do You Know Flamin’ Mamie & Her “Bouffant Belles”?

On April 20, 1964, Sports Illustrated published a story titled FLAMIN’ MAMIE’S BOUFFANT BELLES — A BEAUTY-MINDED TEXAN PIONEERS A NEW GLAMOROUS LOOK IN WOMEN’S TRACK by prolific writer, editor, and track superfan Gilbert “Gil” Rogin, who passed in 2017 after an illustrious writing career. When the grabby headline landed on our editorial team’s radar recently, we decided this nearly sixty-year-old story of a glamorous Texas track team bears retelling … with a critical follow-up story still to come.

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The photo on the cover of Sports Illustrated (yes, this was a cover story) shows a row of ready-to-launch runners with mile-high coiffed hair. Hair that seems to defy the laws of gravity thanks to the ample (and flammable) hair sprays their coach Margaret Ellison toted everywhere and went through like candy. You’d be wrong if you thought this was just how they posed for this particular shoot. This meticulously curated “look” was how Margaret presented her team at every competition.

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Margaret Ellison’s Texas Track Club

The girls called Margaret Ellison “Miz El’son” to her face and “Flamin’ Mamie” behind her back. She founded the Texas Track Club in Abilene, Texas, in 1961, centered around her oldest daughter, Pat, who broke the 75-yard-dash record at the Junior Olympics. Although Pat eventually stopped competing, Margaret kept assembling her handful of all-women track teams. By 1964, she had a team of eight elite competitors, 18 top-tier meets under her belt, and a feeder club bringing in the state’s top young talent.

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Her dedication nudged up close to obsession. Margaret was a 46-year-old divorcée whose droll job as a banker’s secretary left her unfulfilled and looking for a more stimulating purpose. Training and beautifying this team was where she belonged. Aiming to change the stereotypes surrounding track, she found talent based on speed, then molded them into her version of peak physical beauty.

The Bouffant Belles

Margaret drove three women to the meet that Sports Illustrated covered. The most famous member of the team was the brunette-turned-blonde Janis Rinehart. One of ten children, Janis’s basic training was chasing her siblings around the family farm. Her now-husband became enamored with her on the Sports Illustrated cover and tracked her down to win her over.

Paula Walters — aka The Eola Flash — was competitive to the core. She ran the last medley leg fiercely but also wanted to attend beauty school one day. Paula would be the perfect pick for the team, distracting her competitors on the starting block with her black nail polish and black satin uniform. Sue Schexnayder — aka Swift Sue — was quiet and lacked confidence but was a “natural beauty” to Margaret. The other five women on the team were Carvelynne Leonard, Dora Dyson, Irene Williams, Cel Rutledge, and Jeanne Ellison (Margaret’s daughter).

Why The Obsession With Beauty?

So why such an emphasis on makeup and hair? After all, as Rogin pointed out, isn’t hair that big anti-aerodynamic on the track? Margaret offered a counterargument: hair does not get in their faces while they run. Jokes aside, her philosophy was that over-the-top beauty in this oft-overlooked sports arena would reinvigorate interest in women’s track. It would bring in sponsors, fans, and young girls who looked up to the Belles as role models.

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As obsessed with beauty as with winning races, the coach and her athletes believed style was the magic ingredient. That it would hold the girls’ attention past the early teen years, during which most quit. Margaret refreshed the uniform designs each season, rotated five signature hairdos, and adhered to a meticulous rulebook of beauty and physical standards. Shift dresses on travel days and at hotels were a must, for example.

Margaret’s approach to the beautification of her team mirrored the “secure your own oxygen mask before helping others” mentality. She always had an entire wardrobe and a brigade of beauty products. And she found the best salons in every town where they competed, even when the pickings were slim. “I insist that they wear makeup. We all go to the beauty shop before each meet, so we can get beautiful and get our minds off the meet,” she told Gil Rogin for the initial article.

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Meanwhile, the real magic was happening in Tennessee.

In truth, Flamin’ Mamie and her Bouffant Belles were a flash in the pan. They encouraged women to compete beyond adolescence and showed that attention to style did not mean ignoring your craft — but after the cover story, interest largely petered out. Another professional runner of the time, Julia Chase-Brand, talked to Runners World about the cover story, calling it “so condescending for those women who deserved recognition as athletes. In some sense, it was like the swimsuit issue.” And as a result of the story, the Bouffant Belles did succeed in bolstering a growing group of male fans with binoculars.

Rogin’s original reporting is riddled with problematic platitudes. For example, he calls the women’s ability to be pretty and run well a “delightful anomaly.” Was it necessary for Margaret to force her team into a showy aesthetic mold? To her, at the time, it was.

The media attention surrounding the team sprung from the novelty of their look and unfortunately took the spotlight away from faster women a few states over. At Tennessee State University, the predominantly Black Tigerbelles won medals as fast as the Belles went through hairspray. In part two, we will leave Texas to tell the tale of the actual “heroines of the track” — the TSU Tigerbelles — and their coach, Ed Temple.

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