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Rating: 4.3 (26 reviews)
Author: Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King

An Autobiography

4.3 (26 Bewertungen)

35 Min.

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What’s in it for me? An inspirational story from one of the greatest athletes and activists of our time.

There are great sports players and then there are the athletes that change the game forever. In the case of Billie Jean King, she didn’t just change the game of tennis, she changed the way people view and treat female sports players. She used her status as the world's top tennis player to shine a light on gender inequality. Her persistence led to major changes in professional sports and paved the way for Title IX legislation, which made gender discrimination illegal in any institution that receives federal funding.

Before Billie Jean King, women didn’t have many opportunities and weren’t even expected to make a career in sports. After Billie Jean King, there was a viable path and female tennis players became among the highest earners in all of sports. That’s just one accomplishment in a remarkable life that has been devoted to equality.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how a ten-year-old girl came to find her calling through sports;
how an extramarital affair led to a public outing; and
how a sponsorship from a tobacco company helped pave the way for equal pay in tennis.

The Rules of the Game

It was a typical Southern California day in the city of Long Beach. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the September air carried the spicy smell of the eucalyptus trees. It was 1954, and ten-year-old Billie Jean Moffitt was taking her first tennis lesson, along with a small group of other boys and girls.

Already, Billie Jean was something of a sports fanatic. She loved basketball and softball, she’d tried swimming and golf, but there was just something about tennis. There was both variety and constant motion – running, jumping, and whacking the ball back and forth, again and again. It was also mentally challenging. In a word, it was perfect. Plus, when she asked her dad about “which sport would be best for a girl,” his reply was swimming, golf, and tennis. Without a doubt, tennis was way more appealing to Billie Jean.

So, after her first lesson, it was decided – at least in Billie Jean’s mind – tennis was the thing she was going to do with her life. When her mom came to pick her up from the tennis court, she enthusiastically explained that she now wanted to be the world’s number one tennis player.

Her mom’s reply was pretty much what you’d expect: a polite, “Okay dear.” A few years later, Billie Jean’s younger brother Randy would make a similar declaration at the dinner table when he told everyone he’d grow up to be a professional baseball player. Amazingly enough, both Billie Jean and Randy would follow through on their childhood aspirations. And in no small part, this was due to the fact that their parents never tried to put limits on their dreams. The Moffitts never had much money. They were a working-class family through and through – and sometimes her parents picked up extra work to pay for lessons, sports equipment, and travel expenses. But they were always supportive, and Billie Jean was always grateful for that.

Of course, it wasn’t smooth sailing from that day on. Not long after Billie Jean had made up her mind about tennis, she was taken to her first professional baseball game. She was shocked to discover that there were no female baseball players on either team. That’s when it first dawned on her that her plans had some built-in obstacles. It was now clear that even if she could play as well as the boys, that didn’t mean she’d be able to join them on the same playing field. This idea got reinforced sometimes by the neighborhood boys her age who could balk at the idea of playing sports with a girl, even if that girl was a better athlete than most of the boys.

Fortunately, even as a kid, Billie Jean wasn’t easily dissuaded. In fact, as would happen time and time again, obstacles like these would just fuel her fire.

Knowing What It Takes

On that fateful September day in 1954, when Billie Jean discovered what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she was receiving her first tennis lesson from a man named Clyde Walker. These were free lessons that Walker gave out on a public court, as part of a publicly-funded city program. It was another stroke of luck that Walker just happened to be another adult that recognized Billie Jean’s talent and didn’t try to impose any limitations on her.

Instead, Walker quickly enrolled Billie Jean and her friend Susan Williams into local junior tournaments. Just before the first tournament, Billie Jean asked Walker if he could make her a champion. Walker said no, he couldn’t. But then he added that with hard work and determination, Billie Jean could make herself into a champion.

Discovering the Off-Court Game

In 1957, 13-year-old Billie Jean saw what world-class tennis looked like. It was the Pacific Southwest Championships, and Billie Jean was among the audience that got to see Althea Gibson play like the champion she was. By this time, Althea was already a legend. In 1950, she’d been the first Black player to compete in the US National Championships. In 1956, she was the first Black player to win a Grand Slam title at the French Championships. A year later, she won Wimbledon.

Now, a few months after the Wimbledon victory, here she was playing in Los Angeles, and Billie Jean couldn’t take her eyes off her. The way she moved, with such grace and precision, was literally jaw-dropping. Her footwork, her powerful serve, the way she could control the ball and dominate at the net, it was everything Billie Jean longed to do. Here it was in front of her: the level of excellence that she needed to achieve in order to be number one. It was inspiring, but it was also a little daunting. It was now apparent just how hard she needed to work to get to that level.

When Billie Met Larry

After graduating high school in 1961, Billie Jean Moffitt was enrolled at Los Angeles State College. She spent a lot of time in the library, but she wasn’t studying. She’d sit there, at one of the library’s long tables, rolling a tennis ball back and forth between her hands, trying to figure out what to do.

By this time, she’d been able to raise enough money to get to Wimbledon, where she won the women's doubles championship alongside Karen Hantze. Karen was 18 years old at the time, and Billie Jean was just 17, which made them the youngest doubles champions in Wimbledon history. It was one of the most thrilling experiences of her life. Still, when Billie Jean returned home, she found that little had changed. She still found herself getting into conversations with people who expected her to settle down, find a husband, have some kids, and not be a “tennis bum.”

A Game Changing Trip Abroad

Tennis is a sport that’s filled with great rivalries, where two players continually battle it out against one another, year after year. For Billie Jean, one of her main rivals was the Australian player Margaret Court. It really started with their first match in 1962, when Billie Jean, playing in only her second Wimbledon singles draw, beat Margaret in the second round. Margaret was coming into Wimbledon having already won the Australian championships and – just weeks earlier – the French Championships, known as Roland Garros. So it was a stunning upset, especially for the many people in the clubhouse who’d put money on Margaret to win.

Margaret would get her revenge the following year, when she beat Billie Jean in the Wimbledon finals. And Margaret was the one who beat her at the 1964 Wimbledon semifinals. But then Billie Jean made the fateful decision to go to Australia and work on her game with one of the best coaches in the business, Mervyn Rose.

Going Pro

It can be hard to quantify just how important one period of training and coaching can be. But there’s a telling statistic we can look at. Before Australia, Billie Jean’s record against Margaret Court was one win and nine losses. Afterward, they were evenly matched, literally, with 12 wins and 12 losses each. But in the years to come, Billie Jean and Margaret would begin to find themselves on opposite sides of some very different fights.

After her time in Australia, Billie Jean felt more confident than ever in her game. She was winning tournaments again and closer than ever to finally reaching the number one spot. That goal was finally reached in 1967, when she beat Margaret Court at the Wimbledon finals, as well as taking the women’s doubles championship alongside Rosie Casals. Now it was time.

A Tour Is Born

They became known as the Original Nine. Their names were Billie Jean King, Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Kerry Melville, Judy Dalton, Val Ziegenfuss, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon, and Patti Hogan.

These were the nine players that agreed to risk their careers in order to launch a new women’s tennis tour. Tired of having their fates be determined by a small group of men who showed little interest in their wellbeing, these women agreed that starting a series of their own tournaments was worth the risk of being suspended from the USLTA.

Taking Down Bobby

Billie Jean had known about Bobby Riggs since she was a kid playing and hanging out at the Los Angeles Tennis Club in the late 1950s. By that time, he’d already won three Grand Slam titles and had retired to become something of a charming hustler who liked to win money at tennis by challenging celebrities to friendly wagers.

Bobby’s hustle gained national attention in 1973 when he was able to convince Margaret Court to a big televised match. Billie Jean was rather crestfallen that Margaret had accepted the challenge. Bobby had been pestering Billie Jean for months already and she’d refused to take the bait. First, Margaret had refused to join the women’s tour. She’d called the players on the tour “money grubbers” and actually said that women aren’t equal to men and shouldn’t be paid equal money. Now she was accepting Bobby’s offer and helping to provide him with a platform to espouse his male chauvinist blatherings.

A Love Affair Gets Exposed

It was a long time before Billie Jean King self-identified as a lesbian. The idea never even crossed her mind until she was in college, and even then it didn’t seem real. There was always a part of her that was attracted to men. And without a doubt, she loved her husband Larry. Still though…

In 1969, after having spent weeks away from Larry while on tour outside the US, she confessed that she’d been with another woman while traveling and that it was just a fleeting thing that was over. Her main concern at the time was that her affair could somehow damage Larry’s career as a lawyer. Larry was understandably taken aback by this news, but he never let it get between them. They were still devoted to and in love with each other, even if Larry used Billie Jean’s affairs as an excuse to discreetly see other women himself.

Stepping Out

Billie Jean had in fact been publicly outed by Marilyn. Ironically enough, this outing happened at a time when Billie Jean had recently fallen in love with another tennis player, Ilana Kloss – a woman she would eventually marry in 2018. But getting there would still take some time.

Billie Jean and Larry successfully fought the lawsuit Marilyn had filed and were able to get her evicted from the house they owned. A huge media blitz followed, where Billie Jean and Larry did interviews with the likes of Barbara Walters and explained how they were still very much in love and committed to each other despite Billie Jean’s affair with Marilyn. No, she was not a lesbian, they explained.

Pride and Progress

Billie Jean and Ilana are still involved with sports and are part owners of the Los Angeles Sparks WNBA team. But being an activist in the LGBTQ+ community has become a central part of Billie Jean's life. She was honored to be among the people President Barack Obama chose to represent the US at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Russia continues to be a place where people in the LGBTQ+ community are persecuted. Due to these kinds of human rights issues, Obama wanted to make a point by making the official US dignitaries to the Olympics be openly gay athletes. During her brief time in Sochi, Billie Jean gave a press conference voicing her concern about the violence and oppression LGBTQ+ people in Russia were facing. As she was leaving the conference, a trembling teenage boy named Vlad worked up the courage to approach Billie Jean. He explained the horrors of abuse and bullying he faced on a daily basis while living in Sochi, both by his peers and his teachers. “I’m afraid to stay,” he explained.

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Worum geht es in All In?

All In (2021) tells the remarkable life story of Billie Jean King, the woman who led a call for equality in women’s sports that soon reverberated around the world. King’s activism and refusal to back down led to real changes in the US legislature, with results that spread far beyond the realm of sports. All the while, King grappled with personal issues that would only find resolution later in life.

Wer All In lesen sollte

Sports fans
Activists and equal rights crusaders
Anyone who loves a good inspirational story

Über den Autor

Billie Jean King went from playing tennis on public courts in Southern California to being the world’s number one female player. She led the charge in creating the first women’s professional tennis tour, and earned 39 Grand Slam titles along the way. She’s the co-founder of the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative and a global ambassador of the Billie Jean King Cup.

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