BILLIE JEAN KING on Tennis and Activism
“Our job is to leave our guts on the court, not only for ourselves, but for them. The audience is everything.”
In nearly all countries, national sports champions tend to become larger-than-life heroes. And the United States is no different in that respect. But in the U.S., we often expect our national stars not only to become international champions in their sport but also to help solve major social challenges (as Jackie Robinson did in breaking the color barrier in major league baseball).
Over the past half century, one such national/international/social-barrier-breaking sports champion, and role model, was a tennis player who captured the country’s and the world’s attention in ways unlike most other athletes, male or female: the great tennis star and champion of equality Billie Jean King.
As an athlete, she became one of the world’s finest tennis players, the winner of 39 Grand Slam titles (12 singles titles, 16 doubles titles, and 11 mixed-doubles titles), including a record 20 Wimbledon championships and 3 World TeamTennis titles.
In doing this, she also broke the existing mold for champion tennis players. She came from a blue-collar background, without the resources typically available to championship-level players for training, travel, and equipment.
As an athlete who wanted to change her sport, King was, certainly in the tennis world, in a league of her own. She pushed to create the first women’s tennis tour—the Virginia Slims Circuit—and later she cofounded World TeamTennis, where men and women play together on teams representing various cities.
But her most meaningful achievement in changing the tennis world may well have been her successful fight for equal prize money for women and men at the Grand Slams. No doubt, though, her most visible effort to advance women’s tennis was when she beat, in three straight sets, Bobby Riggs, a former men’s number-one-ranked player and Wimbledon champion, in a highly promoted “Battle of the Sexes,” winning the then-enormous sum of $100,000.
As an athlete who helped change the world, Billie Jean King disclosed, at great personal and professional risk, that she was a lesbian at a time when that was almost never publicly acknowledged by women in sports. And with her disclosure, she fought hard to allay the discrimination then common against gay and lesbian athletes.
While retired from active playing, she is not retired from her pursuit of gender equality and LGBTQ rights, having become a tireless advocate for those issues. Her mark on the sport might be seen in many ways; one quite visible way occurred in 2006 when the United States Tennis Association renamed the site of the U.S. Open as the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
This interview took place on September 25, 2018, as part of the Great Americans series at the Smithsonian.
DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN (DR): You grew up in Long Beach [California], a very nice community. It’s part of L.A. in some ways. When you were growing up, most people who played tennis were from upper-income families. They were country-club members. Your family was not. Your father was a blue-collar worker?
BILLIE JEAN KING (BJK): Right. He was a firefighter.
DR: How did you actually afford the lessons to play tennis, and where did you get the chance to play?
BJK: The reason I was able to play was because it was free and it was accessible. The Parks and Rec Department of Long Beach provided free instruction every week. The second time I picked up a racket, at the end of that I knew I wanted to be number one in the world. My poor mother picked me up. I said, “Mom, I want to be number one in the world!” She’s going, “That’s nice, but you have homework.”
DR: When did you realize you were better than the people you were playing with and that you might actually be good enough to be the best in California, the country, the world?
BJK: When I was thirteen, I saw Althea Gibson play at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. That was kind of the hub for Southern California tennis in those days.
If you can see it, you can be it. And I remember seeing Althea. Now I knew what number one looked like, how good you have to be. I thought, “Wow, I’ve got a lot of work to do!” I just couldn’t wait to go work.
The one thing my dad always taught us was that every generation gets better. I’m looking at how well she plays, and yet I’m younger. “I’m going to have to get better than that to be number one? How am I going to do that?”
It was so inspiring, though. And she’s our Jackie Robinson of tennis. Althea was the first African American to ever win a major. African Americans weren’t allowed to play in any sanctioned tennis tournament until 1950, which is three years after Jackie Robinson had played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Then we know about Arthur Ashe, the wonderful Arthur Ashe, who came later, and who won the first Open in which professionals could compete. That was the first time we got paid money to win a tournament that wasn’t under the table. I fought against amateurism. I fought like crazy, got in big trouble for that. But 1968 we finally received a check. At Wimbledon, Rod Laver won men’s singles and won £2,000. Then I won £750 as a woman, and I’m like, “Oh God, not another thing to worry about.”
DR: You were winning tournaments in California, then you’re winning national tournaments. When did you win your first Grand Slam?
BJK: Doubles in 1961. I prefer doubles over singles. I like mixed doubles, then women’s doubles, and then women’s singles. All three experiences bring something different to the table and it’s exciting.
I like collaboration. I grew up in all team sports. Basketball was my first love. I played baseball, but if you’re a girl, they make you go and play softball, which isn’t right either. That’s a whole other discussion. I’ve talked to the Dodgers about that. All these things drive you crazy. Just reverse it. Men, reverse it. You got £750 and I got £2,000. Do you think that’s right? It’s not right. It just isn’t right.
DR: Today many of the leading tennis players do not play doubles or mixed doubles. You played mixed doubles, doubles, and singles, all in the same tournament.
BJK: Yes. I’d be so bored the way they do it.
DR: Why do you think players today who are great players don’t want to play doubles or mixed doubles?
BJK: It’s much more demanding physically than it used to be. But it’s about money, really. Everyone only cares about players in tennis that are great in singles. In the old days, what I call the A players, we played everything.
DR: As you look at your career, who were the best women tennis players you played against, or that you have ever observed?
BJK: It’s all the number ones of each generation. It’d be Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, who had probably the greatest tennis rivalry of all time. If they had been two men, we would be hearing about it constantly. They had such a contrast of styles. Chris is a baseliner, this one’s a serve-and-volleyer, and they’re just clashing. The contrast of styles was really what made it so interesting.
DR: And what about men players? Who were the greatest singles players?
BJK: Rod Laver’s one of them. Roger Federer, I think, is the all-time great. Rafael Nadal’s right there, just side by side. Jimmy Connors was one guy I loved to go watch. He was so intense. He was crazy. But I love the way he’s competitive. He just shared everything with the people and got them excited. John McEnroe, great hands, great competitor. Probably didn’t take as good care of himself as he could have. He probably could have won a lot more. He stopped winning around twenty-six.
Björn Borg quit at twenty-six. He was a tremendous player. Pete Sampras, unbelievable—best serve ever. Greatest second serve. You’re only as good as your second serve. Andre Agassi, the best returner. But Nadal and Federer—I just think each generation gets better. Same with Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, all these great women players.
DR: Let me ask you a few tennis questions as an amateur. I’m not really a great tennis player. Nobody would suspect that I am. So when I watch tennis, I wonder, why do the players bounce the ball? And is there a thing about how many times you’re supposed to bounce it before you serve?
BJK: That is totally up to the person. It’s an inner rhythm. You have to have your rituals. It’s a sense of inner rhythm inside your soul.
I used to bounce it twice. The younger players had to bounce it forever. The women tennis players would sit in the locker room when Jimmy Connors played, and we used to count how many times he bounced the ball. It would be seventeen, eighteen. Now we have a service clock. Aha! Only twenty-five seconds. And the players are having trouble.
It’s like everyone has this inner rhythm. It’s very ritualistic. And they’ve proven that when you do have your rituals, it helps. If I was really nervous and recognized it, the most important thing was to take ownership and say, “I am nervous.” A lot of players go, “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I’d bounce it again twice, and try to really slow down. You really have to understand and be self-aware of what you’re doing.
DR: Do you think the game is better when you have the kind of TV camera that can show you whether a ball is out or not out?
BJK: I love it. It reduces anxiety from the players, but it also helps the lines people. In World TeamTennis this year, we had no lines people, we only had an umpire and the triangulation of twelve different cameras. You’d hear an “out” by a female or a male voice. And it worked out unbelievably. The players would start to argue. They’d show it up on the screen, and they call it right every time, so bad luck. The thing I didn’t like is we’re costing jobs for the lines people. But I prefer this way as far as keeping it absolutely clear in who really won and who didn’t.
DR: With or without the cameras, do you think fighting with the umpires makes a difference? Does it help you, hurt you?
BJK: Some people think it depends on your personality. That’s self-awareness again. Someone like John McEnroe, it got him all hyped up and he played better.
DR: Is there coaching from the sidelines a lot? What can they really tell you? Work harder? Hit the ball harder?
BJK: No, no. Here’s what they do. You can say, “This could be a lob,” or “Go to their forehand,” or “Go to net,” or whatever.
DR: When you’re playing baseball, you can have somebody throwing a ball at one hundred miles an hour and it could hit somebody in the head. People are yelling and screaming. When you’re a tennis player, if anybody says anything when you’re tossing the ball up, people get upset. Why does there have to be so much silence?
BJK: I think tennis has got it all wrong. They think the fans are there to watch them. I tell the players, “No, we’re there to entertain them. Without the fans, we are nothing.” We are entertainers. Our job is to leave our guts on the court, not only for ourselves, but for them. The audience is everything.
DR: Talk about money. When you first started playing, as you pointed out, players weren’t paid very much.
BJK: Fourteen dollars [for tournaments]. Expense money.
DR: If I have my numbers right, you won 129 career titles.
BJK: I don’t know. I don’t care about that.
DR: Thirty-nine Grand Slam titles. But the grand total of money that you won, according to the statistics, is about $1.9 million.
BJK: That’s correct.
DR: Today you would probably win almost that much for winning one tournament.
BJK: I would win that for sure, because the winner of the Open got $3.8 million [in 2018]. I know there’s inflation, but still, it’s a lot better.
DR: Did you think this was because women weren’t getting paid as much or just that inflation has made prizes much bigger than they were when you were playing?
BJK: No, but we got equal prize money in 1973. Billy Talbert at the U.S. Tennis Association was a great player in the late ’40s. I went and talked to him at USTA in 1972, one-on-one, quietly, calmly. That’s what you always try—behind the scenes first. When you go to the media, it is a last resort.
Before I went to the meeting, Ceci Martinez [a fellow player] had done a survey she passed to the fans at the U.S. Open in 1972. I said, “I want information. Do they think we should be here? Should we get equal prize money?”
My former husband [attorney and promoter Larry King] and I already owned tournaments by then, so I’m a businesswoman. I understand the sponsor side. I understand the challenges, the risk. I went to Philip Morris, to Bristol Myers, and some others. I said, “If any of you would put up the money to make up the difference between what we’re getting now and if we got equal prize money with the men, would you be willing to do that?”
I don’t want to just go and ask without bringing something to the table. I had two things. The survey came out much more positive than we thought. That was good. But then I said, “And Billy’s a great business guy himself. He married a woman that’s very wealthy, and her dad had been great in business.” I said [to him], “We have Bristol Myers, willing to make up the difference in the prize money.”
Billy got real quiet. He was in shock, because what are you going to say when someone’s willing to bring a sponsor to the table for you? And he’s the one that announced it. I thought the board of directors of the USTA had passed it. I have been looking into it lately because I was working on a book. So now I’m finding out they never voted on it. He just announced it.
This is why when people are in leadership positions, they can change things overnight. He changed it from 60 or 50 percent [of the men’s prize money], or whatever we were getting, overnight. Everyone’s an influencer, and people have to speak up, but people don’t like to give up power. They just need to do this.
DR: You’ve played professional tennis for quite a number of years. Why did you actually decide to retire? Was it your knees or was it just harder to compete?
BJK: I was anxious to go into business and, yes, I wasn’t winning. Bill Bradley, who played [basketball] for the [New York] Knicks, was great about this. He talks about full circle in sports. They always tell you, “Get out on top.”
I did that. It was a mistake. I could have had one more big year, and I didn’t do it because I bought into that. I won Wimbledon in ’75. I go, “Okay. I’ll retire now.”
Should have never done that. I was beating Martina and Chris in practice. Chris says, “Why aren’t you still playing?” I said, “Good question.” So it was a big mistake. I could have won one more year.
DR: Did your parents live to see your great success in tennis?
BJK: Yes, but they only went to Wimbledon once. They did go to the King-Riggs match. I begged them both times.
DR: And did they say, “We always knew you were going to be a champion”?
BJK: No. My parents were really good. My parents were unbelievable, my dad particularly, because he was the jock. My mother’s a jock, but you never knew it because she’s a woman and women of her generation didn’t talk about themselves. She told me when she was eighty, “I just wanted to tell you, I beat the boys running.” I go, “Why didn’t you tell me when you were younger?” She says, “Oh, I like your dad to have all the focus. Let everybody talk about your dad.”
He was a really good basketball player. He was asked to join the NBA when it first started in ’48. I’m named after him because he was in World War II, and in 1943 I was born. My mom didn’t know if he was going to come home.
He was brilliant. He never let me read a press clipping after fifteen years of age because I got upset. The Long Beach Press-Telegram put me on the front page for the first time when I lost a match love and love. I went, “I’ve won tournaments. I finally make the front page—”
He goes, “Stop. What’s that match about?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “When did it happen?” I said, “Yesterday.” He says, “Exactly. It was about yesterday. Forget it. It’s what you do with your life today and tomorrow that matters. I don’t want you ever, ever to read your clippings. You’re not allowed to do any of that anymore.”
I stopped that day. He was correct.
Another thing—they never asked Randy [her brother] and me if we won, ever. You know how parents are—your kid walks in, and, “Well, did you win?” Oh my God, it’s the worst. Don’t go there. They’ll tell you how they did.
DR: You’ve won in your career more than 80 percent of your professional matches, which is pretty good. But the one that gets the most attention is not one of the thirty-nine Grand Slams.
BJK: It’s about a guy, baby.
DR: You had a match in 1973 against somebody named Bobby Riggs. Ninety million people watched it. Probably the most-watched tennis match in history, certainly at that time, maybe ever.
BJK: I think it still is probably.
DR: Margaret Court had played him earlier and lost. Why did you agree to play him? Were you ever worried you could lose? And what kind of person was he?
BJK: He kept asking me to play for two years and I turned him down. Then he got Margaret to play. And when I saw her, I went, “Margaret, you have to win.”
Now, you have to remember, she’s Australian, and she’s—well, we’re different. I said, “You have to win. This has much more meaning than a tennis match.”
I don’t think she prepared herself for the circus that was going to happen and the way he is. I knew all about Bobby. He was one of my heroes. I thought he got a bad deal in not getting the attention he deserved, because right in the sweet spot of his career was the Second World War.
I felt bad for him, but I respected him because I love my history. I knew every champion. I’d watched everything. I’d read everything I could on him, but when Margaret lost, I had to play him. I didn’t want to play him. I had to play him.
DR: So you did play him. And was a lot of what he was doing trying to get you riled up?
BJK: Oh, yes. That’s good, though. I love him for that.
DR: Did you practice against men when you were practicing for this, or you practiced against women? How did you practice?
BJK: I just practiced. I had Pete Collins, who was a tennis director at Hilton Head [South Carolina]. I went to Hilton Head for two weeks because we still had the Virginia Slims tour. In fact, during the week that I played Bobby, I had to play in the Virginia Slims of Houston. It’s two matches on Monday. We played the match on Thursday.
DR: Did you ever have any doubt you were going to win?
BJK: I didn’t know. Two months out or six weeks out, whenever we announced it, I’m very anxious, not happy. Start visualizing, start thinking about it. I think about anything that could go wrong, how I would stay calm and focused.
I have to visualize everything. I just love visualization. I would think about getting a bad line call. I went out to the Astrodome the day before the match. I went up in the stands and looked at it. I looked at how the court was structured. I knew there would be no wall behind the court, so the depth perception was going to be shocking, but I knew whatever it was for me it was going to be for him as well.
We’d never played against each other. So I knew I’d never hit a ball against him, but neither had he hit a ball against me. So I’m like, “You know what? Okay.”
One thing you don’t want to do is get lost in an arena, because that can get you crazy. So I wanted to make sure I was very clear on all that. I went and met every security guard. I like to meet everybody, like the administration, people, everybody that runs the arena.
DR: At what point in the match did you realize you were better than him and you were going to win?
BJK: I never think like that when I’m in a match. It’s one ball at a time. Anything can happen.
DR: When you won, you got an enormous amount of attention.
BJK: When he jumped over the net, he said, “I underestimated you,” and we put our arms around each other.
DR: Did he want a rematch?
BJK: Oh yes, but I told him before the match, I said, “I’m only going to play this once because this is about history. It’s about equality.” I’m explaining these things to him. “We’re going to make lots of money. It’s not about the money.” And he finally understood that.
DR: That’s a good segue into equality and the other part of your life. Many professional athletes are great at their sport, but they say, “I don’t want to get involved in social issues.”
BJK: They want to sell things.
DR: How did you decide you wanted to make more than an athletic career out of your life?
BJK: When I was twelve.
DR: So you always knew this.
BJK: No, when I had my epiphany about white people only. Where is everybody else? I promised myself that day at the Los Angeles Tennis Club—then I saw Althea a year later—I promised myself if I was number one, if I was ever good enough—and I knew tennis was played all over the world—I thought, “This is an amazing opportunity.”
I wouldn’t have used the word platform then, but that’s what I was really thinking as a child. I was thinking, “I can do something greater than just winning tennis matches if I’m fortunate enough, but I’ve got to become number one,” particularly as a woman. As a girl I knew I probably had no chance for people to listen to me because people usually talk about boys.
DR: The U.S. Tennis Association named their stadium after you. You must be very proud of that.
BJK: I think it’s amazing. Arthur Ashe and I are really fortunate. It’s his stadium—that was 1997. We had the parade of champions out on that court.
DR: In your career as a pioneer for inclusion, equality, and social justice, what would you say you’re most proud of having achieved to date, and what is your next objective or goal?
BJK: I don’t really think like that at all. I think about, “I’m not done yet.” I always think about the people that got me there. Talk about it takes a village. Just think about what that took to get me just to be standing there, winning at Wimbledon. I was really lucky.
DR: The Equal Rights Amendment has never been ratified.
BJK: I think we’re one state short, aren’t we?
DR: Is that something you’re focused on or not?
BJK: I’d like to see the word woman in the Constitution someplace. That would be nice.
DR: You have been a fighter for AIDS issues and the prevention of AIDS, and that’s been a major push.
BJK: Yes. Ilana [Kloss] and I are founding members of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. I founded the Women’s Sports Foundation in ’74. We’ve invested $80 million. We are the one women’s sport that does research. There’s no research on us, and we are the first ones to start doing that. We’re also the guardian angels of Title IX for the sports part.
DR: With your partner, you’ve started the Leadership Initiative.
BJK: Yes, we did, Ilana and I and probably eight others.
DR: And what is that designed to do?
BJK: That is to help with equality in the workplace—not just by money. It means by culture, by color, by race. It means by just everyone being able to be their authentic self to go to work.
Deloitte did this research with us about being your authentic self when you go to work. So if you grow up poor and you’re ashamed of it and you can’t talk about it, like this one guy had all these university diplomas up and he’s talking about this and that. He never would talk about his beginnings. You’ve got to be your authentic self.
DR: What do you do to stay in shape now? You don’t play tennis as much.
BJK: The doctors are great about this. They always say, “Whatever you can do, just do it. Don’t worry about it’s the newest thing, greatest thing.”
I like to do the bike because I’ve had eight knee operations. I try to do at least two to three minutes of sprints in intervals, because you want to get that difference of heartbeat. Lifting weights, or weight resistance, is hugely important as you get older, especially for women with osteoporosis. I think yoga is great, but I can’t stand to get on my knees.
I think whatever works for you. For me, it’s the bike and weights, and I like to stretch after.
DR: So today, when you look back on your life, what are you most proud of? Your tennis career, your career as a social pioneer?
BJK: They go hand in hand, but probably the off-the-court stuff is more important to me. It’s always been more important to me. From that time I was twelve, I was pretty clear on that as a kid.
You listen to young people, and they’ve done research on this too, that anywhere from, like, nine to twelve, kids really do know what they want to do. They have these dreams, and they think anything is possible at that age, and it’s true.
One thing my dad and my parents and other people have taught me is never take anything personally. That’s one of the greatest things you can teach somebody.
I’m very big on forgiveness, because that allows you to move on. If you take things personally, it just hinders your life.
DR: That perspective is one you should bring to Washington.
BJK: Would you explain to me why we cannot care about the people anymore and why we have these two sports teams trying to win? Are the American people winning? That’s all I want to know. What is wrong with us?
DR: Have you thought of ever running for office?
BJK: I thought about it in the ’70s. Because of my sexuality challenges, I did not, because you have to tell the truth if you’re going to run in politics, and if you don’t tell the truth, you’re toast.
DR: I bet today that wouldn’t be a challenge.
BJK: I didn’t know that then. I wouldn’t want to be that kind of candidate. I want to be honest with my constituents and the people of America, because having democracy, it’s a huge responsibility. I know I probably could have won, but I was going through such turmoil with my sexuality in the ’70s, and that’s when I should have run if I was going to run.
DR: Well, if you ever change your mind, I know you have a lot of supporters.