Issues of race, inequity, inequality, and civil rights dominated the headlines in 2016. The start of the Black Lives Matter movement, social protest against police brutality, and the polarizing racial and religious rhetoric that reached a tipping point after the 2016 presidential election placed us at a crossroads in American history. Subsequent divisive policies that affect education, health care, gender equality, immigration, and religious freedoms also emerged as dividing issues. In response, athletes across the country were compelled to use their voices to engage with the public to raise awareness of and advocate for social change.
In the final months of 2016, there was a rise in sports activism in society, and the role of athletes in regard to activism and social justice has changed drastically within the last year. Their role is particularly pivotal today. We have seen historically how athletics have intersected with change and activism, particularly during integration, the fight for gender equality, and marriage equality. We know that athletes have been able to create and incite change in a way that resonates and has positive impact.
Sports and the sports community do not exist outside the broader context of society. Some of the social issues that affect society have also affected sports; for instance, racial bias, gender inequality, and homophobia. When athletes speak to these things, they speak from a position of authenticity, because these issues affect them as well. When we think back to Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith, they understood what was going on in society because it affected them. When they used their platform and their voice, they were not speaking out about something that they did not understand or could not relate to.
In the face of today’s social divisiveness, we are seeing the advent of what has been called the accidental activist. However, athletes inciting change has been around since athletes started integrating sports and women began their fight for equal rights. Historically, in professional sports, and in almost no other arena to the same extent, athletes and sports stars have publicly broken racial and gender barriers, at times simply by being in the game. As long as sports have been played, issues of discrimination and inequality have played a part and the athlete has found him- or herself in a public position to take a stand (or not) and start a discourse about inclusion and equality.
Many of us are familiar with the well-known trailblazers like Jackie Robinson, and even a few of the less well-known “firsts” like the baseball players Fleet and his brother Welday Walker, or the football players Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. Yet when we think about the women who fought for equality and changed how female athletes were viewed in sports—which at the time were geared to and run by men—usually only a few names come to mind, like the tennis legends Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King. There were many others who are not as well known but were just as instrumental in fighting for women’s inclusion and representation in sports. Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel, Shirley Muldowney was known as “the First Woman of Drag Racing.” Babe Zaharias was one of the preeminent female athletes of the twentieth century and dominated in several sports. A three-time Olympic gold medalist, Zaharias was an all-around athlete who competed in basketball, golf, tennis, billiards, diving, and bowling. Julie Krone, the winningest female jockey of all time, was the first woman to compete in the Breeders’ Cup, and the only female jockey to win a Triple Crown.
These early trailblazers were accidental activists who incited change simply by competing in their sport and being damn good at it, regardless of the color of their skin, their religious affiliation, or their gender. They changed the hearts and minds of America at a time when not only sports but the world was divided by race and gender. To understand the evolution of activism in sports, we have to go back to the beginning, to a time not so long ago when athletes were not consciously trying to change society. Rather, they were simply seeking equitable treatment and opportunities in the sport they loved to play—but in so doing they ended up changing history.
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” Jackie Robinson lived by his words when he publicly broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947. He opened the doors to players of color in the majors. Each year on April 15, every team celebrates Jackie Robinson Day in honor of his contribution to the sport. Robinson is a particular hero to me. I was a Jackie Robinson scholar for the two years I was in college, from 1997 to 1999. It was so inspirational when all the scholars got together once a year in New York. They were all so impressive and had different experiences at universities all across the country, which they shared. It was invaluable to hear their stories and realize the similarities and the fact that there was still diversity among the scholars and attendees. Jackie Robinson’s widow, Rachel Robinson, an esteemed activist in her own right, was always a part of those weekends, and she was as graceful and full of wisdom as you would expect from the life she has led.
Even before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, he was an activist for equality. In 1944 Robinson was arrested and court-martialed during training in the army for refusing to move to the back of a segregated bus. He was eventually acquitted of the charges and received an honorable discharge.
Robinson joined the Kansas City Monarchs as a part of the Negro Leagues and played second base until the Brooklyn Dodgers’ general manager, Branch Rickey, decided he wanted to integrate baseball. Rickey wanted Robinson not only for his talent, but also because of his behavior on and off the field. Robinson did not drink or smoke, and he’d married his high school sweetheart, Rachel. He was also a calm and focused man and baseball player. Rickey knew Robinson would have a tough time playing during the Jim Crow era, but he believed he could handle it without becoming unnerved or distracted on the field.
Rickey was right: there was a lot to handle on the field as a black player in the 1940s. Robinson endured threats from spectators and from his teammates. The players who taunted him were not reprimanded, nor did they face suspension or punishment. That was just one of the many double standards that players who integrated sports faced. Though Robinson was scorned by some of his teammates and openly harassed by opposing players, he never lost his temper or his focus. To be able to play baseball at that time, he had to practice restraint. Had he retaliated or done anything divisive or unsportsmanlike in his first year or two, the consequences could have been extremely severe for him. Instead, he endured the taunts with dignity and grace as he made history.
In 1945 after leaving the Monarchs, Robinson joined the Montreal Royals, which at the time was the Dodgers’ top minor-league team. The Royals were not disappointed. In 1946, led by Robinson, attendance at the Royals’ games almost tripled over that of the previous year. Over a million people came to watch him perform that year, an amazing number for the minor leagues at the time.
In 1947 Robinson was promoted to the Dodgers and made his Major League entrance on April 15. His was the most eagerly anticipated and dreaded debut in the history of the sport. It represented to blacks and whites the hope and the fear of equality. Robinson’s stepping out on the field that day forever changed the complexion of the game. At the end of his first season, Robinson was named the Rookie of the Year. He was named the National League MVP just two years later, in 1949. The Dodgers won six league pennants and one World Series in Robinson’s ten seasons, but his contributions extended far beyond the field and still resonate today.
Jackie Robinson is perhaps the most historically significant baseball player ever, ranking with Babe Ruth in terms of his impact on the national pastime. Ruth may have changed the way baseball was played, but Jackie Robinson changed who Americans thought should play. A man of many firsts, Robinson was also the first black player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Historically, to be an accidental activist is to strive to be great at something and then to be thrust into a social conflict. For me, accidental activism has taken a different form in the sense that today, as athletes, we find ourselves in situations that we did not anticipate. Then, as we go through it, we realize that our voice can make a difference.
Jackie Robinson knew what he was up against when he accepted Rickey’s invitation to play in the majors. When I had my incident in New York I had no idea that I would become a national spokesperson against the use of excessive police force. The same with Colin Kaepernick, who before the start of this season, after witnessing another “innocent” person videotaped being killed by law enforcement, decided to use his voice and platform to draw attention to an issue that deeply affected him and also a large segment of the country. I am sure he had no idea how polarizing his protest would be. Many athletes realize that we have a platform that others do not have, but we also realize that we have an obligation to use it.
Many fans know of Robinson’s contributions, but he was not the first African American to play in the majors. A less well-known baseball player changed the game before Jackie Robinson electrified the baseball field, sparking both awe and anger. Moses Fleetwood Walker, often called Fleet, was really the first African American to play Major League Baseball, in the nineteenth century. In 1884, the Toledo Blue Stockings had two black players—catcher Fleet Walker and his brother, Welday, an outfielder. That year, the Blue Stockings moved from the minor- to the major-league level when they joined the American Association. On May 1, Fleet played against the Louisville Eclipse, and officially broke the color barrier of Major League Baseball.
Between May 1 and September 4, Fleet played forty-two games for Toledo. However, he did not get the opportunity to show what he could do on the field before being taken off the team due to racism. Welday appeared in only five games with Toledo, and Fleet had one of the highest averages on the team.
Both Walker brothers were outspoken about equality and at times brought lawsuits against businesses that discriminated against blacks. In 1888, Welday wrote a letter to Sporting Life, decrying discriminatory treatment in the Tri-State League. His letter, published in the March 14 issue, was addressed to the league’s president, a Mr. McDermitt:
Sir: I take the liberty of addressing you because noticing in The Sporting Life that the ‘law permitting colored men to sign was repealed, etc.’ . . . I concluded to drop you a few lines. . . . It is not because I was reserved and have been denied making my bread and butter with some club that I speak. . . . There should be some broader cause—such as want of ability, behavior and intelligence—for barring a player than his color . . . ability and intelligence should be recognized first and last.
Jackie Robinson suffered through terrible harassment while playing baseball. But it barely compares with what Fleet Walker suffered during the one season he played with the Blue Stockings. Walker endured shouted insults on the field and racial discrimination off it. One of Walker’s teammates with the Blue Stockings, a pitcher named Tony Mullane, stated that Walker “was the best catcher I ever worked with, but I disliked a Negro and whenever I had to pitch to him I used to pitch anything I wanted without looking at his signals.” Despite being an asset to his team, he found it not uncommon for his teammates to not throw the ball to him or include him in the game, which only hurt the Blue Stockings. After Welday and Fleet Walker played their last games for Toledo, no other African American would play in the major leagues until Jackie Robinson, sixty-three years later.
Well-known professional football teams didn’t have any black players until 1946, when Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, friends and teammates, played for the Los Angeles Rams, and Marion Motley and Bill Willis played for the Cleveland Browns, Motley as a fullback and linebacker. A versatile athlete, Motley dominated on both offense and defense. He was a well-rounded player who was large but also quick on his feet. Fellow Hall of Fame running back Joe Perry once called Motley “the greatest all-around football player there ever was.” A trailblazer, Motley was one of the first African Americans to play the professional game in the modern era.
Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard played in 1920 for the Akron Pros. Pollard was named after the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who was born a slave. Pollard played in the NFL when it was still called the American Professional Football Association (APFA). Along with Bobby Marshall, Pollard was one of the first two African American players in the NFL in 1920. Pollard also served in World War I. As a star athlete at Brown University, Pollard became, in 1916, the first African American ever to play in the Rose Bowl. He later led the Akron Pros to the APFA championship in 1920. In 1921, while still a running back, Pollard became the co–head coach of the Pros. The following year, he became the first African American coach in the league.
Strode, Washington, and Jackie Robinson (a truly versatile athlete) were all backfield players for the UCLA Bruins in 1939. At this time, neither the league nor the fans were ready for integration, and these trailblazers were heckled and taunted as soon as they hit the field. Washington was also a decathlete who enlisted in the army air corps during World War II and later became an actor. In 1960 he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Spartacus.
The first black player drafted by an NBA team was Chuck Cooper, picked by the Boston Celtics in the 1950 draft. The Washington Capitols chose Earl Lloyd of West Virginia State. At about the same time, the New York Knicks signed Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton from the Harlem Globetrotters. Lloyd made his debut on October 31, 1950, becoming the first African American to play in an NBA game. Cooper made his debut a day later. Clifton, the first to sign a contract, played his first game on November 4, 1950.
These trailblazers became activists by integrating their sport. Their battle beyond being allowed into the major leagues was then to change the hearts and minds of the fans, the members of the rival teams, and, quite often, their own teammates. Being able to focus on your game and getting support from your teammates and fans is as instrumental to an athlete as being in top form to play. I cannot imagine the type of determination, drive, and will to succeed that these stellar athletes had to have had during the early years of integrating sports. Well known or not, they all bore the burden of creating inclusion while changing history along the way.
Now that I have two wonderfully precocious daughters, I am more aware than ever of issues affecting women in society and sports. I look back in appreciation at the monumental women who made themselves a part of the sport they were passionate about and through their perseverance and undeniable talent simply could not be ignored.
There are so many amazingly talented and inspirational women in history who have opened up their sport and changed how women were viewed, and also how girls themselves viewed sports and their place in it. Many of these trailblazers have gone without substantial recognition for their accomplishments during a time in American history when a woman was not even allowed to keep her job if she was pregnant, and when a woman could not get a credit card, have a legal abortion, file a sexual harassment suit, or even refuse to have sex with her husband. Women did not have any of these rights before 1970.
Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias was born in 1911. A woman ahead of her time, she was considered an all-around athlete of the twentieth century. A natural athlete from a young age, Zaharias competed in a wide range of sports and did phenomenally well in all of them. After dropping out of high school to become an athlete, she ran track and field and won multiple Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) wins and Olympic gold and silver medals in running, jumping, and throwing contests in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Zaharias played All-American basketball and had multiple golf wins—an incredible eighty-two amateur and professional tournaments—and was the first woman to qualify for the Los Angeles Open and play in the PGA Tour. She also played competitive billiards, and competed in sports like tennis, diving, and bowling. In her spare time, she sang and played harmonica, and even recorded several songs on the Mercury Records label. Zaharias faced sexism and jabs from reporters who did not believe that women should be allowed to play sports. Zaharias silenced them by continuing to be one of the best athletes of her time, regardless of her gender or their opinions.
At a time when women struggled for equal rights, Zaharias’s goal was to be “the greatest athlete who ever lived.” Not the greatest female athlete. The greatest athlete. Period. She took on every sport she was allowed to play and excelled at all of them. Her versatility, drive, and all-around natural talent and accomplishments helped chip away at the preconceived notions, prejudices, and institutional barriers facing female athletes in the 1900s.
Gertrude Ederle was born in 1905 and first achieved fame when she competed in the 1924 Olympics. At nineteen, she became the first woman to swim the English Channel and the sixth person in history to achieve that feat. She completed her swim on her second attempt in fourteen hours and thirty-one minutes, beating the record set by the previous male channel swimmers. Her accomplishments may not seem monumental until you consider that she rose to fame in 1920s Manhattan. This was a time when women had to fight for the right to remove their stockings when swimming, because their bare legs might prove distracting.
On her return to New York she was met by a ticker tape parade and a crowd that greeted her arrival at City Hall, where Mayor Jimmy Walker congratulated her. Her achievement earned her the nickname “America’s Best Girl” from President Calvin Coolidge, who also invited her to the White House. At that time, her popularity was on par with that of Babe Ruth. By the time Ederle broke the record, women had been allowed to compete in competitive swimming events for only ten years, beginning in 1914. Her record remained unbroken until 1950.
Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney was born in 1940 and as the first female member of the Auto Racing All-American team, she was considered the first lady of professional drag racing. Muldowney was a multiple National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) winner, the first person to win the NHRA Winston competition three times. Muldowney was not just a good female racer. Though she was the first woman to accomplish many feats in the sport, many of her records stand for the sport as a whole. This makes her one of the most successful drag racers in history, regardless of gender.
As a young woman, Muldowney was no tomboy; she preferred wearing makeup and pretty dresses to sports. In 1956, at age sixteen, she married Jack Muldowney, a drag racer and mechanic who taught her how to drive. After going to races with her husband, she became intrigued with the racing world, and with Jack’s help she learned all about drag racing as well as about the technical aspects and maintenance of the high-performance vehicles. Enamored with racing, Muldowney asked her husband for permission to race. He not only gave it, but he also gave her her first car—a 1940 Ford with a V-8 engine. Muldowney started proving herself in amateur races. When she wanted to go pro, racing’s sanctioning bodies, including the NHRA and the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA), were hesitant to grant a woman professional status. Undeterred, Muldowney rallied fellow female racers Judi Boertman, Paula Murphy, and Della Woods, and launched a campaign to be allowed to race professionally. In 1965, she became the first woman pro dragster racer.
Julieann Louise “Julie” Krone was born in 1963, and though you may never have heard of her, she was the winningest female jockey of all time. With 3,456 career wins over eighteen years, Krone was also the first woman to compete in the Breeders’ Cup, and as of 2017, she remains the only female jockey to have won a Triple Crown race.
Raised on a horse farm, Krone began riding horses at two and won her first horse show when she was five years old. At the age of fourteen, after watching eighteen-year-old Steve Cauthen win a Triple Crown race, she decided that she wanted to become a jockey. She was a natural rider and although only 4’10”, she was a fierce competitor in a sport that saw few female competitors. Male riders tried to sabotage her during races by boxing her horse in by the rail. But Krone fought back. According to a 1988 article in the Los Angeles Times, “In 1986, Krone had a similar scuffle with jockey Miguel Rujano at Monmouth Park. Rujano felt that Krone was riding her mount too close to his, and, in order, this developed: Rujano hit Krone in the back of the head with his whip. Krone punched Rujano after the race. Rujano dunked Krone in the jockeys’ swimming pool. Krone threw a chair at Rujano.”1
Despite being a woman in a sport of men who colluded against her, Krone had monumental achievements in the eighties and nineties. She won six races in one day at both the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, and she won five races in one day at Saratoga Springs and Santa Anita Park. A truly phenomenal athlete, she became the first woman to be inducted into the National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame, in 2000.
It is because of trailblazers like these that we have so many of the civil liberties and rights we have today. It is because of them that I have the opportunity, as the son of a black father and a white mother, not only to have played sports professionally, but now to be able to work as a sports commentator and discuss tennis at the games and in the media. These women and men, and so many others like them, heralded equality by their prowess. Their hard-won progress has afforded Americans unalienable rights, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or religion. These phenomenal men and women showcased their amazing talent and fortitude and brought spectators, black and white, men and women, to their feet in recognition of their talent, grit, and strength of character.
In 1968 the Mexico City Summer Olympics would sorely test the 5,516 athletes, representing 112 countries in 172 events. According to Olympic.org, “The choice of Mexico City was a controversial one because of the city’s high altitude, 2,300m. The altitude proved an advantage in explosive events such as short-distance running, jumping, throwing and weightlifting. But the rarefied air proved disastrous for those competing in endurance events.”2
On October 16, eight men took their marks on the track for the men’s 200-meter dash. The short-distance runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos finished first and third. Smith set a new world record that day of 19.83 seconds. The crowd’s exuberance for the exciting race quickly turned to anger when during the medal ceremony, Carlos and Smith walked out in their socks with their heads lowered, and their hands behind their backs, holding their sneakers. They then stood barefoot on the podium, in the gold and bronze positions, to symbolize the poverty and inequality that plagued so many black Americans. Carlos and Smith faced the flags, then bowed their heads and raised their fists while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played.
This gesture was to show support for human rights and equality and to take a stand for civil liberties in a devastating year of tragedies that included the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. The next day, the International Olympic Committee made Smith and Carlos forfeit their medals. The athletes were suspended from the American team and told to leave the Olympic Village and Mexico immediately. The committee even threatened to boot the entire American team as punishment if they did not leave.
Although their gesture was often called a “Black Power” salute, in his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Smith wrote that it was instead a “human rights salute.” That expression is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the Olympics. The fierce backlash from their protest followed them for decades. Even after the athletes had been disciplined, the repercussions of their actions continued. On October 25, 1968, Time magazine wrote: “‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ is the motto of the Olympic Games. ‘Angrier, nastier, uglier’ better describes the scene in Mexico City last week.” Back in the States, both Smith and Carlos were criticized in the media and ostracized in the sports community. Smith was discharged from the army. In college, Smith was married with a young son. Someone threw a rock through a glass window at his son’s crib, missing the sleeping baby by inches. For years after, Carlos and Smith received death threats and threatening phone calls and notes that read, “Go back to Africa.”
It would not be a stretch to see a parallel between the gesture Carlos and Smith made and Kaepernick’s gesture. Demonstrating for human rights in a peaceful way does not seem so controversial. Carlos and Smith raised their fists. They did not harm anyone; they did not shout obscenities. It would be a difficult argument to make that their advocating for human rights was not valid or worthwhile. In a similar way, Kaepernick is fighting some of the same battles that were fought in 1968. He is peacefully advocating for human rights. It is not what Kaepernick is protesting that has drawn the fans’ and the media’s ire, but how he is doing it. It was much the same for Carlos and Smith. Their fight for human rights is one we can all understand and support. It was important to make their stand using the Olympics as their international platform. They decided that for the greatest impact, the world stage would afford them a lasting impression. They were right. Carlos and Smith are now considered heroes fifty years later. I wonder how long it may take for Colin Kaepernick.
John Carlos and Tommie Smith represent the ideal of the athlete activist because they were on top of the world as Olympic medalists, but they decided instead to selflessly use their platform to incite change. They were shunned for using their public moment on the podium to bring awareness to what they saw as inequality in their sport and in America. They wanted to show their displeasure with a system that they felt did not treat all men fairly or equally. Because of this dedication to their cause, they lost it all in an instant. Their peaceful protest had a ruinous ripple effect that lasted for decades.
I cannot imagine that they knew beforehand the impact it would have on their personal and professional lives. In addition to threats and harassment, they lost sponsorships and endorsements, and ultimately ruined any chances to compete at the international level ever again. Yet the fact that they made such a life-changing decision during what could be seen as one of the most important moments in their lives represents a monumental sacrifice. Although they were excoriated in the media for being selfish, that act was one of the most selfless choices I could imagine anyone making as an athlete. That gesture, in that moment, had such a negative effect on their lives, but it inspired change in a positive way simply by raising awareness at a time when the world was watching. This is one of the few times I think using the word “hero” to describe an athlete is apt. Having athletic prowess and honing that skill for most of your life is impressive and admirable, but standing up for others who do not have a voice when you can—that makes you heroic.
Today Carlos and Smith are hailed for their contribution to civil rights. They received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2008 ESPYs, and there is a statue erected in their honor at San Jose State University. However, also standing on the podium was a third man, whose story and selfless, unwavering support of their protest has all but disappeared from the annals of history. A white Australian, Peter Norman, the silver winner, who came from behind Carlos to overtake him for second place by inches, set a record at 20.06 seconds, which is still an Australian record.
Norman knew what Smith and Carlos intended to do. After winning the first, second, and third positions in the 200-meter race, the three men stood in the stadium tunnel waiting for the medal ceremony. Smith and Carlos, each wearing a black glove on one hand, discussed their now-historic plan. Norman, standing not far away, asked what they were talking about. Carlos turned to him and said, “Do you believe in human rights?” Without pausing, Norman said, “Of course.” Carlos told him that he and Smith intended to stand on the podium wearing badges in support of human rights and equality. Carlos held out the Olympic Project for Human Rights badge they intended to wear during the ceremony and asked if he would wear one. Again without pausing, Norman reached for it and said, “I’ll stand with you.”
Norman wanted to be included and to give them his full support. As they stood on the podium, the spectators could see the small white badge with a green wreath that all three wore pinned to their chest. Norman knew he could not raise his fist along with them, so he wore the badge as a show of support for human rights and solidarity with the two Americans who would become his lifelong friends. In 2006, when Norman died at age sixty-four from a heart attack, Smith and Carlos were his pallbearers.
From the perspective of many in Norman’s home country, his act was not a courageous thing for a white Australian to do; rather, it was thought of as a shameful act. But Norman did not view it that way. He felt it more important to advocate for equality with Smith and Carlos. He paid a steep price for it when he returned to Australia.
Norman kept the badge for the rest of his life, despite the backlash he faced—one that continued until his death. The white badge was an important symbol that tied him to Smith and Carlos, to that critical moment in history, and to his place in it. Norman and the part he played that momentous day to advance human rights was as lasting and powerful as the statement that Smith and Carlos made. Decades later, history would vindicate Smith and Carlos, whose actions are now celebrated, but Norman was never fully accepted back into Australian society or the athletic community.
Norman was inarguably the greatest Australian sprinter, whose time of 20.06 that day in Mexico City was a personal best and an Australian 200-meter record that is still unbroken almost fifty years later. Despite this, Norman, a five-time 200-meter champion, never again competed professionally after Mexico City. In Australia, the Olympic silver winner was ostracized and his family shunned. Norman was reprimanded by Australia’s Olympic authorities and then ostracized by the Australian media. Despite his qualifying for both the 100-meter and the 200-meter races, the Australian Olympic track team did not send Norman, or any other sprinters, to the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics. It was the first time in modern Olympic history that no Australian sprinters would participate. Australian officials said that they supported Norman at the 1968 games. Norman represented his country at the 1972 Commonwealth Games.
Norman left the sports world behind, and looked for work, but it was hard to find. The Australian silver medal winner and record holder eventually secured a job as a gym teacher, but he battled depression and alcoholism for many years.
“If we were getting beat up, Peter was facing an entire country and suffering alone,” John Carlos said of the man who became his lifelong friend. Norman was reportedly given the opportunity to better his circumstances, but it would mean condemning John Carlos’s and Tommie Smith’s actions. Had he done so, according to reports, Norman would have secured a stable job through the Australian Olympic Committee and been part of the organization of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Norman, although now in dire financial straits, chose not to speak out against the gesture Smith and Carlos had made, or his part in it.
Subsequently, Norman, the greatest Australian sprinter in history and the holder of the 200-meter record, was not invited to the Olympics in Sydney. It was the American Olympic Committee that asked him to join its group. Norman died without his country ever fully recognizing him for the hero he was in bringing home the silver medal for the 1968 Olympics or for his stellar athletic accomplishments.
Years later, in 2012, the Australian Parliament considered a posthumous apology to Norman. According to a 2012 article in The Nation,
Here is the text of the resolution that will be offered into parliament by MPs Rob Oakeshott and Andrew Leigh:
That this House; Recognises the extraordinary athletic achievements of the late Peter Norman, who won the silver medal in the 200 metres sprint running at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, in a time of 20.06 seconds, which still stands as the Australian record;
Acknowledges the bravery of Peter Norman in donning an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge on the podium, in solidarity with African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who gave the black power salute;
Apologises to Peter Norman for the wrong done by Australia in failing to send him to the 1972 Munich Olympics, despite repeatedly qualifying; and Belatedly recognises the powerful role that Peter Norman played in furthering racial equality.3
The Australian Olympic Committee has since disputed the claims made in the Australian Parliament apology about Norman being shunned in supporting Carlos and Smith. According to the November 2015 Australian Olympic Committee News article “Peter Norman Not Shunned by AOC,” the AOC made the following comments:
AOC: Peter Norman’s performance at the Mexico 1968 Olympic Games to win silver in the 200m and then support the black salute from American gold and bronze medallists, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, will forever give him a place in Olympic folklore.
The Australian Team Chef de Mission at the 1968 Games Mr Julius Patching supported Norman and this continued throughout his life including honorary roles at Australian Olympic Committee events.
There is a misleading and inaccurate report on social media that the Australian Olympic Committee shunned Peter Norman.
When the incident happened at the 1968 Mexico Games, Norman was not punished by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC). He was cautioned by Patching that evening, and then given as many tickets as he wanted to go and watch a hockey match. That was his punishment! This is confirmed in the Official History of the Australian Olympic Movement, compiled by the late and respected historian Harry Gordon.
It has been claimed that Norman was not picked for the next Olympics in 1972 because of the incident in 1968. This too is incorrect. At the time Ron Carter, athletics writer for The Age, wrote that Norman was injured and failed to perform at the Trials.
In the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Norman was involved in numerous Olympic events in his home city of Melbourne. He announced several teams for the AOC in Melbourne and was on the stage in his Mexico 1968 blazer congratulating athletes. He was very much acknowledged as an Olympian and the AOC valued his contribution.
As for the accusation that Norman was not invited to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. The AOC was not in a financial position to invite all Olympians to Sydney 2000. They were given special assistance to purchase tickets but it would have cost the AOC hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring Olympians from around the country to Sydney for the Games. The suggestion he was shunned is totally incorrect. He was treated like any other Australian Olympian.
Norman has been profiled by the AOC over recent years on the AOC corporate website—corporate.olympics.com.au—as one “Of Our Finest” Olympians.4
We can certainly understand why the African Americans Carlos and Smith would want to risk so much to take a stand for human rights and racial equality, but why would Peter Norman, a white man, commit to a cause that may not have directly affected him when he could have simply enjoyed his moment of victory? He could have returned home to Australia a hero, his financial future secure. Perhaps the best answer comes from Norman’s own words, in the award-winning 2008 documentary Salute, written, directed, and produced by his nephew Matt Norman. Salute is an insightful account of that historic moment in civil rights history. It is also a shocking reminder of how the world was less than fifty years ago.
“I couldn’t see why a black man couldn’t drink the same water from a water fountain, take the same bus, or go to the same school as a white man,” Norman says in the film. “There was a social injustice that I couldn’t do anything about from where I was, but I certainly hated it. It has been said that sharing my silver medal with that incident on the victory dais detracted from my performance. On the contrary, I have to confess, I was rather proud to be part of it.”
All three Olympians should go down in history for putting their principles before their personal interests, and for their willingness to accept the outcome.
I can think of no other athlete who has had such an all-around impact on so many lives in so many areas of society than Billie Jean King. Being a tennis superstar was only one of her many accomplishments. King stood for the acceptance of people regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation. She advocated for women’s rights, gender equality, LGBT rights, and marriage equality. She also fought for equal pay for female athletes and for equality not only in sports but also in the workforce.
King, who always thought that “if you could see it, you could be it,” used her global tennis platform to not only inspire, educate, and empower women—who saw that she was just as good an athlete as men—but also inspire men to see that women were not less than men, but that they were equal. In 1973 King threatened to boycott the US Open unless women were awarded equal prize money as men, and won. Using her leverage as the defending champion, King secured for female champions the same prize purse as the men’s champion.
On Mother’s Day in 1952, when Billie Jean King was nine years old, she went with her family to Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. As she looked out at the players it dawned on her that there were no women. She was shocked when she found out that women did not play professional baseball, and, in fact, many women did not play professional sports at all. She was disappointed but determined that nothing would keep her from playing tennis, a game that she loved. King eventually saved enough money to buy herself a racket. It was lavender, and she was so thrilled that she slept with it. King was so excited about learning to play that she read all the tennis books she could find at the time, all three. Then she went to the park for her first tennis instruction. At the end of the day, King ran home and told her mother that she found what she wanted to do with her life.
King first learned tennis in the late 1950s on the public courts of her hometown in Long Beach, California. She worked two jobs to pay her way through college. At that time, sports scholarships were not offered to women. It was not until 1972 that Congress enacted the federal civil rights statute known as Title IX of the Education Amendments. This amendment allowed for equality in sports in the United States. Before Title IX, women and girls were not given the same benefits as men and boys in terms of educational opportunities, participation, and federal financial assistance.
What this meant was that any federal funds given to a high school, college, or university, either public or private, had to be given equally to boys and girls. Before Title IX, young women could not get an athletic scholarship in the States. The amendment enabled women to receive sports scholarships. That changed everything. It allowed female athletes the same financial opportunities as male athletes to attend school and focus fully on sports without having to work extra jobs to afford an education, as King did. This meant that women now had the same opportunities as men, and it created equality in education and sports activities. Female athletes could now play team sports in a way they could not before.
Despite the good that Title IX did for female athletes, King believed that you could have a law, but until you changed hearts and minds nothing had really changed at all. She wanted to start that change. King worked hard on her game, perfecting her hard-charging style and aggressive play. By twenty-three she was the top-ranked women’s tennis player in the world, having won both the US Open and Wimbledon. King has said many times that she doesn’t like tennis, she loves it, and that when she plays she feels like she can do anything. She feels freedom, the freedom to do or be whatever she wants.
However, tennis, her love for the game, and her outspokenness for women’s rights and equality took her farther than I think even she could have imagined. By the end of the 1960s, King was speaking out against a long-standing—and growing—disparity in the pay and prize money awarded to men and women. In 1968 women won prize money in competitions, but King never thought women would get less prize money than their male counterparts. At Wimbledon that year, women made less than half the prize money that men did. Before King took on the male-dominated tennis establishment, women players made $14.00 a day.
When the male players formed their own union, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), King saw an opportunity. She suggested that the organization also include women, but it rejected her suggestion. She would not be put off. In true King style, she decided that if female tennis players could not be a part of the men’s association, she would start an association for women. In 1970, she founded the Women’s Tennis Association to unite all of women’s tennis in one tour and create tournaments to play for prize money. She started the WTA by getting nine players (the Original Nine) to sign one-dollar contracts to compete in a new women’s tour, the Virginia Slims Series. Her dream in creating the association was for every girl, from all over the world, to know that “if she were good enough that there would be a place for them to play, to actually compete and to make a living.”
There was a lot of skepticism about the women’s association and tour. The main argument was that no one would want to pay to watch women play. In 1973, in the midst of King’s fight for equal pay and prize money, Bobby Riggs, a former number one player who had won the Triple Crown at Wimbledon (and also a self-proclaimed male chauvinist), issued a challenge to the top female tennis players to try to beat him in a match. Sitting next to King during a news conference, he proclaimed, “There’s no way a woman can play tennis with a good man tennis player. This is a battle of the sexes!”
The fifty-year-old Riggs had set his sights on King, but when she declined his challenge, he went after the Australian Margaret Court, the top women’s player. At that time, Court, a Grand Slam winner, had three Wimbledon wins and three women’s singles wins. When Court accepted, Riggs destroyed her on the court in the first, less publicized Battle of the Sexes match, played on Mother’s Day in 1973 and later known as the Mother’s Day Massacre. Riggs easily defeated Court from start to finish, leading her two games to love in the first set, and Court never recovered. After that, King felt she had to play Riggs to vindicate female athletes. After she accepted, their match took on a life all its own.
Riggs’s challenge, that he could outplay any woman at the time, had started out more as a publicity stunt, but it got King thinking about society and what a match like this could mean to young girls and women. King knew that she had to play him and she knew that she had to win, especially after the loss Court suffered. Unlike Court, who didn’t consider herself a women’s libber and was playing for herself against Riggs, King, a staunch advocate of women’s rights, felt that she was playing for all women. And she knew if she won she would put women’s tennis on the map. For King it was about much more than tennis; it was about social change, and it fit in perfectly with what was going on in the world at that time, with the women’s liberation and feminist movements. News of Riggs and King’s match took off in the media like a rocket. The winner would not only take home $100,000 in prize money but would also claim bragging rights in the age-old argument of men versus women. But not only did King have to win, she knew she would have to win big. She would have to run him into the ground.
So she took up the gauntlet, and with the world watching they met across the net on September 20, 1973, in the Houston Astrodome for the highly anticipated and much publicized Battle of the Sexes match. King was determined to win the match that would ultimately define her career. To King, she had to win because not only would it be a win for her, it would be a win for women everywhere. It would be a win for any young girl or woman who was told to believe that she was the weaker sex. It would be a win for any young girl or woman who had been told that she did not have what it took to be a real competitor, and compete on the same level as men. King thought that women were on their way to achieving equality, and she wanted it to continue. But she worried that another loss by a woman to the trash-talking Riggs—who liked to say that King “plays well, for a woman”—could set women back fifty years.
The match started off on a gorgeous sunny day with so much pomp and pageantry that it looked more like a coronation than a tennis match. Cheerleaders in skimpy outfits kicked up their heels as a band played and thousands of fans filed into the stadium. Ninety million people watched the match internationally and fifty million Americans watched at home. Often called colorful and controversial, Bobby Riggs was wheeled into the stadium in a rickshaw surrounded by beautiful women while King entered in a chariot of brightly colored ostrich feathers, pulled by men from the Rice University track team. And although there was a carnival atmosphere in the stadium, underneath it all was a sense of a real battle to prove who was the better sex, men or women.
King, a crusader for women’s rights, carried the weight of all the women watching. She felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility, and many media pundits predicted that she would buckle under the pressure. She proved them wrong. Once the pomp and circumstance was over and the tennis began, King methodically took Riggs apart in what was undeniably an explosive match from beginning to end. King matched Riggs stroke for stroke, even as he hammered her backhand with shot after shot. When King won spectacularly in straight sets, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3, Riggs hopped over the net, shook her hand, and said, “I underestimated you.” It was an indescribable moment for King because her father had always told her, “Respect your opponent, never underestimate them.”
In a match that captivated the world, played in a packed stadium, King defeated Riggs, and the men and women in the audience rose to their feet in appreciation of her victory. The next day the headlines heralded: “Mrs. King Defeats Riggs. King Wins Battle of the Sexes.”
King’s victory was twofold. It was a victory for women’s rights, and it sparked social change. In that beautiful moment when she beat Riggs, she silenced all the naysayers and doubters who believed that women were not as good as men, or could not compete on the same level. At the same time, she also gave women and young girls across the world the confidence to believe in themselves and to fight for their rights. When she trounced Riggs she started a women’s revolution in sports and placed sports squarely at the center of a national debate about gender equality. She gave women confidence and empowerment. But she wasn’t finished.
In addition to the WTA, King cofounded World Team Tennis in 1974 with her husband, Larry King. The WTT is a pioneering co-ed tennis league, featuring matches of different configurations of men’s and women’s single and mixed-doubles teams. Since its inception, the league has drawn top players including King, Bjorn Borg, Chris Evert, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Evonne Goolagong, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Venus and Serena Williams, Lindsay Davenport, and Martina Hingis, to name only a few of the exceptional tennis players who participated. I have been a part of WTT since 1999 and I competed last in 2016.
The mixed-gender format not only highlights the interplay of the phenomenal men and women on the teams but also unifies them as a team instead of separating them by gender. This was something King has fought for her entire professional career. King became commissioner and major owner of the league in 1984, following her retirement from the professional tennis circuit.
King has always said that champions adjust and that pressure is a privilege, which is also the title of her memoir. To her it was a pleasure to have pressure. It meant you were really doing something. Pressure came with the game, and to her it was what you did with it that mattered. She reminded herself over and over that pressure was a privilege the night before her match with Riggs.
King gained all the lessons she needed in life from the tennis court. She called them lessons in life from the court. Every ball that came toward her meant she had to make a decision, she had to be nimble, she had to adjust per volley, she had to think, she had to strategize. Every single decision she made on the court had consequences. King used this same approach in life. She was equal parts emotion and strategy. When she wanted something emotionally, she strategized a way to make it happen. When she wanted women to be a part of the men’s tennis organization, and she was denied, she created her own association. When she wanted to play professionally, but women were not offered sports scholarships in the sixties, she worked two jobs to earn enough money to make it a reality.
Years later, in 2009, when President Obama bestowed on King the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, he told her that he saw her historic match against Riggs when he was twelve years old and it made such a difference in him, in how he perceived women and what they were capable of, that it changed the way he would raise his daughters. This is truly an amazing statement that shows the impact an activist can have not only in the moment but also on future generations. No president would ever make such a monumental change, such as how he decided to raise his daughters, based solely on a tennis game. What affected him was that King was fighting for social change, as it affected women.
In a life rife with personal and career struggles, King cites being outed in 1981 in a palimony suit by her former secretary Marilyn Barnett, who was suing her for support, as one of the biggest struggles of her life. The suit forced her out of the closet, making her the first prominent lesbian in sports history. She decided to have a press conference and come out to the world. With her husband, Larry King, and her parents, Betty and Bill Moffitt, sitting next to her, she announced that she had indeed had an affair with Marilyn Barnett.
King’s coming out was unprecedented. Public figures, sports figures, actors, and politicians simply did not come out as gay in the 1980s. King did not realize she was gay until 1968 at twenty-five, after she had already married her college sweetheart, Larry King, whom she divorced in 1987. When she made her announcement that day in front of a phalanx of cameras and journalists, there was a collective gasp. She thought that the truth would finally set her free. But the backlash was immediate. She lost all her endorsement money within twenty-four hours of the announcement. This did not keep King from continuing to use her global platform to speak out for women’s rights, gay rights, and eventually marriage equality.
Today the WTA is the global leader in women’s professional sports, with more than 2,500 players representing nearly one hundred nations competing for a record $139 million in prize money. A former world number one professional tennis player, King has won 39 Grand Slam titles, including 12 singles, 16 women’s doubles, and 11 mixed-doubles titles. But somehow none of them would prove as memorable as her victory against Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes. This is in part because it was not only a win for King, it was a win for all women. King’s success that day and over the course of her stellar career inarguably paved the way for equality for all female athletes. Because of King, today equal prize money is awarded in all four major tennis tournaments for men and women.
King was not just a pioneer of women’s tennis—she also pioneered equal pay for women off the courts. During the course of her life she helped change how women and men perceived feminine identity, women’s role in sports, and also the role of sports in social justice. Her match against Bobby Riggs proved that women were equal with men not only on the court, but also off the court, because her victory helped empower women to believe in themselves and their role in society. Because of King’s win, women felt empowered in the workforce to ask for a raise. Some women had waited ten or fifteen years to do so. But feeling empowered and on equal footing with men, women asked for raises in jobs they had worked at for years, without equal pay or raises, and many got them.
King fought for equal rights for women because women have historically had fewer rights and freedoms and were also considered less than men. They were considered not as smart, not as strong, not as resourceful. But King knew none of this was true, and it drove her to want to make a difference in women’s lives. She wanted to be a voice for those she felt could not speak up for themselves. King’s challenge to sexism, the supportive climate of second-wave feminism, and the legislative clout of Title IX sparked a women’s sports revolution in the 1970s that fundamentally reshaped American society.
What King did and continues to do as an activist and advocate moved female athletes forward in leaps and bounds and still affects them today. Sadly, there is still work to be done, as US women today earn seventy cents on the dollar to men. Companies employing women in positions of power are still far too rare. It appears that it takes women starting the companies (which, statistically, are more successful than those founded by men) to have their leadership roles filled with women. What King started must continue—we cannot lose the momentum. The sports community is lucky to have athletes like Venus Williams and Megan Rapinoe who are willing to fight and continue fighting for equality for women in sports.
King is vocal about the issues that are important to her and has been since the beginning of her career. I appreciate that she made time to speak with me for this book. I was curious to find out what drove her to be the outspoken advocate she has been and when the first time was that she felt the need to advocate. When I caught up with King I had a long list of questions to ask her. King is one of my tennis heroes. Not only has she been a trailblazing tennis player but she has been an activist throughout her entire forty-year tennis career. First and foremost, I wanted to find out about the first time King decided to advocate, the issue she spoke out about, and what that felt like for her. King didn’t have to think long about her answer.
“I had an epiphany when I was twelve,” she responded. “I was at the Los Angeles Tennis Corp during the Pacific Southwest where all the top players would go after the US Nationals, which is the US Open now. I had played tennis about a year and I started to understand that tennis is a platform, it could take you places and you could do things with it. But I knew for me as a girl, it would be a different journey than for a boy. There are a lot of similarities between race and gender that people don’t pick up on sometimes. I do, because I’m a woman. I’m on the other side, a side that doesn’t always do as well. As a man of color, you and I should be hand in hand in a lot of issues that affect our race and gender. Of course, you have daughters now, so you’ll start to understand issues of gender through them.
“That was the moment of truth for me, to decide that I was basically going to fight for equality for the rest of my life. To fight for the same opportunities as men. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, and it took me a long time to do it. I really fought for pro tennis, and sometimes that got me in trouble. Those were really difficult days to try to get the game to be professional, and on fourteen dollars a day, women made far less than the men. It really bothered me. Growing up, my sports were team sports; basketball was my favorite. Then I played baseball, softball. I loved track and field. You know, the professional sports. To me, to be a professional always meant you’re the best.
“I then get into tennis, my last sport ever, which I didn’t know anything about. I fell in love with tennis. I read the history. I learned everything I could. In my mind as I went through my journey, I was always fighting for equality, all types of equality, not only gender equality. When we finally had professional tennis I wanted the men and women to have the same association. The men rejected us. They said no. Plan B was to start a women’s professional tennis, which we were lucky to be able to do.
“It was quite a journey, and as you go through those moments, you start to build a platform. As pro athletes, we are very fortunate that we have exposure. It’s our job to use it as long as we’re careful, thoughtful, and kind. But also tough. It’s amazing to have this opportunity. It’s a blessing. That’s how I feel every day when I wake up. I count my blessings, and think, What can I do today to make the world a better place? If you think that way, you’ll notice opportunities to speak up. That was why I played Bobby Riggs. It was no athletic feat to beat him. It was an opportunity for social change.
“Before 1972 there were classroom quotas. For instance, as a woman, if you wanted to go to medical school at Harvard, the quota in the classroom before 1972 for women was five percent. If your daughter wanted to study medicine at Harvard, before 1972, she had a five percent chance of getting in because of the quota. I want to get fifty-fifty all the time, that was our battle. Today it’s about fifty-seven percent women. When people who have been oppressed get the doors open, they take advantage of it. It’s like breathing. It’s like truly breathing the air for the first time. That’s what we did with the WTA.
“As I said, when I decided to play Bobby Riggs, it was about social change. It wasn’t about tennis. What happened during that match was important on two fronts. One was a chance to change the world’s perception of women as athletes, change not only men’s perception of women, but also a woman’s perception of what she was capable of. The second was we got tennis exposed to the world like never before in the history of our sport. We’re a new sport professionally. So the timing for both men’s and women’s pro tennis was fantastic. That was the explosion of the country’s and the world’s interest in tennis. It was because of that match. The match was seen by ninety million people worldwide and around forty or fifty million here.
“Within six months, you couldn’t get a tennis court. Men in the league never really talk about it. They never bring it up or mention it. Yet it’s helped give tennis players and the associations a lot more exposure. That was the reason. It wasn’t the pro tours. The pro tours got their first network contracts because of that match as well. No one talks about it in connection to the match. That match really changed the way the world perceived professional tennis. It is the same as speaking out about issues that are important to you. It’s not how you perceive it but how the world perceives it. That’s what we try to change. At that time it was important how the world perceived it.
“It’s no different, James, from what you are doing by speaking out about your incident with the police officer. You are trying to do the right thing and speak out for people of color. What’s been happening to young African American boys, is just not right. I remember hearing Hillary’s first campaign speech at the David Dinkins event at Columbia. That was her first campaign speech. It was all about the incarceration of young African Americans. It was an amazing speech, discussing what she would do to try to make it better. I thought that as the subject matter for her first campaign speech it was amazing. We have to keep trying to do the right thing, to speak out for people who don’t have your voice or platform. I think any time I can speak out, then good. I’ve had so many opportunities to speak out. But you have to think about what you’re doing, not just feel impassioned to do it. You have to be careful emotionally when you become active, because sometimes it takes on a life of its own.”
I knew exactly what King meant by “it takes on a life of its own.” When I decided to speak to the media about my incident in New York, I had no idea that I might end up where I am today, as an advocate for victims of police misconduct or the author of a book about sports activism. As such, I was curious about how King prepared for her role as an advocate. Every athlete prepares for protest differently. How did she prepare for advocacy—to make a statement or to commit an act of activism? And how should a young athlete go about it, or is it something that just comes naturally? Clearly there is no handbook about activism, yet it’s a role that athletes have found themselves in for decades.
“First of all they need to read history,” King answered almost immediately. “The more you know about history, the more you know about yourself. I read Founding Sisters, for instance. These are the women who sacrificed everything so that women could vote. Then I read books about male gender too, because I like both. My advocacy isn’t limited to only one gender. I’m really big on including everyone, men, women. Just trying to get equality in the workplace to be equal. It’s the pay, it’s the advancement. It’s the opportunity, empathy. All the things that are important. It’s not only about diversity and inclusion. You can have inclusion if you have diversity, and diversity with no inclusion. For me, it’s about equality across the board. In the workplace it starts on the corporate level.
“Of course I fight for girls and women in sports. We founded the Women’s Sports Foundation in 1974. We are the guardian angels of Title IX in sports. If you read something about girls in sports it’s usually based on our research. We’ve given out more than eighty million dollars in grants to girls and organizations that empower them. We also do a program with espnW called Sports 4 Life. It offers grants to increase Latinas’ and African American girls’ participation in sports. They are the ones who are often left behind. If they get into sports they’ll do better academically. They’ll graduate.
“After I played Bobby Riggs I started the Women’s Sports Foundation. I had an opportunity, I had a platform. I had exposure. People knew who I was. I knew Title IX could be weakened over the years. How important it was to vote for it. It’s only thirty-seven words, but what it really states is, ‘No discrimination based on sex.’ Which meant girls can’t be discriminated against. If things had been reversed, the boys would have been as behind as the girls were. Whatever the situation may be, it’s about equality. Those are the things I care about. Everything I care about is based on equality.
“If you’re in collegiate or professional sports, you have an opportunity to stand up and be counted. Make sure you think about how you want to speak out. What’s at stake? You have to decide carefully when you do something, because it’s with you forever. You have to decide if that’s the way you want to express yourself. There’s a lot of thought that should go into it. If you don’t think it through, your intention won’t be clear. For instance, take the Rooney Rule. Even though the intention was one hundred percent good you’re not guaranteed how it will be received.”
King’s point about the Rooney Rule and its intention is an interesting one. The Rooney Rule is named after Dan Rooney, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the chairman of the league’s diversity committee. It was created by the National Football League in 2003 and requires every franchise to interview at least one minority candidate for the head coaching position when there is a vacancy. The rule is clear that a minority candidate must be interviewed for a head coaching position when one opens up. It says nothing, though, about actually having to hire one. This can be considered a loophole. A team can follow the rule by interviewing a minority member for a head coaching position without really considering him as a possible candidate.
I agree with King that the Rooney Rule is well intentioned, and some people believe that there are African American coaches who were able to secure their positions because of the rule. Some people in the football community believe that is how Mike Tomlin got the head coaching position for the Steelers, which is owned by the Rooney family, primarily by Dan Rooney and his son Art II. But I don’t believe it has made the difference that it was supposed to or that people hoped it would.
In addition to knowing your history and thinking through your statement or act so your intentions are not misconstrued, did King have any other advice on how to prepare for advocacy or activism? Also, with all the protests in the months before our talk in 2016, has she found any difference today in the activist athlete culture from that in the ’70s, when she had her epic match and started on her path to activism?
“Those are the kinds of things I think everyone who wants to create change should think about,” King replied. “When I give lectures and talks I always tell the audience that it’s about them, it’s not about me. It’s about their influences on life and on others. And that it’s really important to actively listen. When they have the urge or the spirit moves them to speak, you have to be kind, and you have to be careful, but also bold. Think about it, plan it out, and then go for it. When you go for it, you go per volley. I think it really is good if you’re calm, thoughtful, and maybe ask others who have spoken out in the past. Think it through. If you have time. Sometimes you don’t have time. When I haven’t had time to think something through I just go with my truth, whatever it is. Just go with it. As long as I’m trying to be kind and good and thoughtful, and truthful, I figure I’ll be okay.
“As for the difference between the activism during my playing years and today, I think the seventies were an amazing time. There were so many things changing, and the movement for women’s equality and rights for women was very strong at that time. Women couldn’t get a credit card until 1973 without a man cosigning for it. So much has changed since then, clearly. Then there was a gap when athletes were quiet. No one said anything for a while. To me I never felt I knew Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods as human beings. For a while they dominated sports. I always felt that they were on a pursuit of excellence. I can understand that, especially operating at their level athletically. But what did they feel about society? What did they feel about people of color? What did they think? They never talked about their personal take on those things. So I thought there was a big gap there for a while. Today the athletes are much more active, and much more into activism than they’ve ever been.”
I agree with King. Activism since the ’70s has changed drastically, because in the ’70s there was an activist culture. Then there was definitely a huge gap, particularly during the time Michael Jordan was widely reported to have said, “Republicans buy sneakers too.” This quote has been debunked, but it is indicative of the era at that time. That gap could have been because of corporate sponsorship, either fear of losing endorsers or fear of not attracting them. Today there has been a huge surge in sports activism. For instance, LeBron James has advocated on two fronts. He used his voice to endorse Hillary Clinton for president and he also uses his substantial economic resources to create change in communities that need it. And Steph Curry, who had been pretty quiet and low key on the activism front, recently spoke out because he disagreed with Kevin Plank, the Under Armour CEO, who said that Donald Trump was an asset.
Athletes today are more willing to speak up. Social media has also changed our reach. Every athlete has a direct link to his or her fans all the time. This is something athletes did not have on the same level in the ’80s or ’90s. Also, in those days, the beat reporters in the locker rooms would ask questions specific only to the game just played, not about athletes’ points of view of social issues, which we’re seeing more of today. So the fans did not get to know them in those days. As Billie Jean King said, fans didn’t know Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, we didn’t know how they felt about society. Today, you can find out such information through the 24/7 news cycle or from social media. There is so much more the professional athlete can talk about. We all have a point of view. Today we are able to learn about athletes on a more personal level, about their personalities and their perspective on society. Did King think there was more athletes could be doing today to spark change, and if so, what? And should athletes feel a responsibility to be involved in advocacy and activism? Is this a role we can and should take on? King didn’t need to pause for her answer.
“Yes, I do believe that athletes are in a position to create change. With the money and the wealth today’s athletes have, they can take more chances now. More risk as well. It’s not like when I was making fourteen dollars a day. And even then I was almost suspended. The Original Nine who started women’s professional tennis—we were threatened that we’d never get to play again. So when you’re making no money, that’s one thing, but at the levels so many of these athletes are playing at today it is a lot tougher. I’ve always loved LeBron because he speaks out. He loves Cleveland and has tried to improve his community. He’s very different from Michael Jordan. He’s gonna make a big difference in the world. To me it’s always been much more important what I did off the court, than what I did on. I always wanted to be a force off the court. That’s what matters most to me in my life.
“To answer your first question, James, about what really started me on a path to activism, it still goes back to when I was twelve years old. My brother, Randy, and I were talking the other day, and we realized that growing up we were the watchers on the block. If we ever saw bullying he and I would step in. I started to wonder why we were like that. Why did we want to speak up for or protect people? Then the answer occurred to me. My dad was a firefighter. He would run into a burning building when everybody else was running out of it. More firefighters die than police officers, which a lot of people don’t know. It got me thinking about the exposure I had as a child. Every day he left for work, I knew he might not come back. You think about those things as a child. You’re influenced by them. Even if you’re not aware of it. I think that taught us to do the right thing, to always try to do the right thing. Everyone has to do it their own way. You just do the best you can.”