In her book, Friedan challenged the prevailing notions that women achieved complete fulfillment through housework, marriage, child rearing, and subsuming their own sexual desires. She assailed the idea that “truly feminine” women had no “natural” desire for higher education, careers, independence, or a political voice. Rather, what Friedan’s reporting showed was that many women were deeply dissatisfied, but they felt voiceless, powerless, and stuck. Her book sold more than a million copies in the first year alone.
That same year, the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, which former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt initially chaired, published its two-year study that described the tremendously unequal landscape for men and women in numerous areas of American life, particularly for women of color. Those findings hastened the 1963 passage of the Equal Pay Act, which made it illegal to pay women less than men for the same work. (We’re still waiting for its full compliance.)
The civil rights movement was exploding across America as well. The summer of 1963 began with the horrible news of the assassination of the Mississippi-based civil rights leader Medgar Evers in his driveway a few weeks before I returned to Wimbledon; it ended on August 28 with the epic March on Washington, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his mesmerizing “I Have a Dream” speech that included so many unforgettable lines, including his resounding hope for a day when all children “will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
I was in New York that day, about to start play at the U.S. Championships, but I dearly wished I could have been in Washington. I wanted a world that reflected the vision Dr. King described. I kept watching the news footage of his remarks to the hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the Mall, marveling at how the enormous crowd stretched backward from the Lincoln Memorial as far as the eye could see. Change and upheaval seemed to be happening everywhere I looked. And I was questioning a lot too. College became a time of drift and uncertainty for me.
When I got back to England in the summer of 1963 I again felt like I had to play my way back into tournament form and at times I took out my frustration on myself or anyone else within earshot. At Manchester, I blew an overhead and yelled out, “Good ol’ Billie Jean! I thought you were going to let me down, and you sure did.”
I felt a bit better when I got to the Federation Cup, a new women’s team competition. We could finally say there was something progressive happening in women’s tennis. The original Federation Cup boasted a sixteen-nation field, which was an exciting expansion of the two-nation format the Wightman Cup offered. When I saw the trophy after we arrived, I told my teammates and longtime friends Darlene Hard and Carole Caldwell, “You guys, we have to win this because it’s history! Every time we look at the trophy, we’ll be the first!” We did win the inaugural event by beating Australia in the final. I played Margaret Smith only in doubles, which Darlene and I won to clinch the title.
When Wimbledon began just days later, I continued to play well despite a frequent drizzle that kept blurring my vision through my glasses. But my on-court histrionics were starting to attract mixed reviews. A good portion of the press thought my tortured patter was funny or a fine show of spirit, and the writers started hanging nicknames on me such as “the peppy chatterbox” (ugh), the “effervescent Californian” (better), and “the myopic pepper pot” (now wait a minute…). But many of the players were not amused—including Margaret, who griped publicly about my emotional displays and “verbal retorts.” She didn’t care that we were on a collision path to play each other and her criticisms might motivate me more. I was again unseeded but I upset Maria Bueno in the quarterfinals and England’s Ann Haydon Jones in the semifinals. Ann had married Pip Jones, a businessman and tennis official, the year before.
I was now in my first Wimbledon singles final, and Margaret was across the net and seeded No. 1, the same as the previous year. As for what happened next, well…I could blame the rain that delayed our match two days. But honestly, I think the real culprit—again—was that I wasn’t a full-time player and I didn’t have the emotional and physical stamina to maintain my edge. In a way, I had no business being in a Wimbledon final after having played only two tournaments since spring. But Margaret was sure ready. She beat me 6–3, 6–4.
It was one of those matches where I literally felt pinned in the backcourt as she kept pounding shots at me. This time Margaret didn’t falter under the weight of becoming Australia’s first female Wimbledon titlist or the specter of losing to Little Miss Moffitt, the unknown from Long Beach who had cost her so much the previous year. Back then, my shocking victory was such big news that Margaret’s father told the Sydney Morning Telegraph that he wanted Margaret to see a psychiatrist. Not very nice. When I couldn’t duplicate that upset I became terribly frustrated.
When I went on to the U.S. Nationals and lost to England’s Deidre Catt in the fourth round at Forest Hills, I was despondent. And far worse news kept coming.
In September four young Black girls were murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, during their Sunday school class. Their names were Denise McNair, who was eleven, and Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Cynthia Wesley, who were all fourteen. The Ku Klux Klan was blamed.
In October I was driving to school in stop-and-go traffic on the 710 freeway and I saw a Greyhound bus in my rearview mirror coming up fast behind me. When I realized the bus was not going to stop I threw my car into neutral just before it slammed into me with a horrible bang—the start of a five-car chain reaction that sent my knees slamming into the dashboard and my neck whiplashing forward and back. Cars did not have mandatory seat belts in those days. My old Ford was crushed like a soda can. By some miracle, I wasn’t hurt enough to be hospitalized. But my knees would cause me chronic problems that required surgery the rest of my life.
On November 22, 1963—my twentieth birthday—I had just left my geology class and was walking toward the tennis courts when I saw Larry urgently motioning for me to hurry up toward him. I broke into a jog, then started running when he kept it up. That’s how I learned that President Kennedy had been shot. I remember crying with my teammates when the official word came that Kennedy was pronounced dead at a Dallas hospital. My birthday has never felt the same since.
Two days after that, I was sitting on the sofa and watching the live TV coverage of JFK’s alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, being taken in police custody to the county jail when Jack Ruby leaped forward and shot Oswald with a .38 caliber revolver. It was disturbing and surreal to see in real time.
Tennis was not just dissatisfying then, it was starting to feel more unimportant than I could recall. Larry and I went to my parents’ house for Christmas and my mom tried her best to make it as special as ever, but it wasn’t a joyful time. New Year’s Eve was the same; I just didn’t feel like celebrating. By now, Larry and I were starting to talk about planning a future together, and I was all for it when he decided to switch from biochemistry to pursuing a law degree. That sounded terrific. He was exceptional at diagnosing and fixing problems. But when spring classes resumed at L.A. State, I didn’t feel much like studying myself.
I began pulling out of my sadness when I went out one day and just started hitting the ball around. When I don’t exercise for a while I always feel a craving for physical activity. It’s hard for me to stay depressed on a tennis court. It took me about three months to get back into shape after the car accident, but by January I felt well enough to start playing matches again. The pure physical joy of whacking the ball can wipe your mind clean and make all your troubles go away. But only for a while.
My results at the 1964 summer majors—a semifinal loss to Margaret at Wimbledon and a quarterfinal loss at Forest Hills to Nancy Richey, both in straight sets—again triggered frustration. I actually wondered if I should quit. A good number of my tennis contempor
aries were getting married by then, and a few were even starting to have kids. I was torn.
I was almost twenty-one, and I couldn’t win a major singles title. Something had to change. And out of the blue, something remarkable did.
* * *
—
I happened to be standing in my parents’ kitchen in Long Beach when the phone rang one day in September 1964. When I picked it up, I was surprised when a man with an Australian accent said, “Hello, would this be Billie Jean Moffitt?”
The voice on the other end introduced himself as Bob Mitchell and added, “You probably don’t know who I am…”
“Are you kidding? Of course I do!” I said. He was the Melbourne businessman who financially supported Margaret and another Aussie star, Roy Emerson, who was the No. 1 male amateur in the world. Mitchell laughed and said, “That’s right. And I’d like to help you, too.”
When Mitchell said he wanted to pay my way to Australia to train with the great Australian coach Mervyn Rose, it was like the world stood still. I couldn’t believe my ears. Merv was one of the best tennis coaches in the world at the time. He had been working with Margaret and many other great Australian players, and he was known as a man who could look at your game, take it down to the studs if need be, and rebuild it into something much better and tighter. Whatever he did, it usually worked.
It was the offer of a lifetime, and I told Bob that. I also said I would have to think about it and get back to him. What about Larry? What about school? I’d be gone for at least three months. Larry didn’t hesitate.
“You’ve got to do it, Billie Jean!” he said.
“But what about us, Larry? I don’t want to leave you. It’s not fair to you.”
“We’ll be fine,” he insisted. “I’ll still be here. And you’ll never get a chance like this again. You always said you want to be the best, right? Well then, go for it. Don’t waste your talent.”
“But I’d have to drop out of school.”
Larry smiled and said, “I hate to tell you this, but you really don’t belong in school right now. You’re not that crazy about it anyway.”
It wasn’t a lie. As I thought about what to do, my mind started reeling back to those days I sat in my elementary school classroom staring at that big pulldown map of the world and dreamed about going places. I thought about how once I started to play tennis, I was determined to be No. 1 in the world. I said it to Alice Marble, I said it to Clyde Walker, I said it to myself too many times to count.
I thanked Larry. Then I called Bob Mitchell and told him I’d take his offer.
Three weeks before I was due to fly to Australia, Larry and I had lunch at a coffee shop in Long Beach. He reached in his pocket, slid a little box across the table that contained a quarter-carat diamond ring in a gold setting, and asked me if I would marry him. I looked at him, overwhelmed, and then I looked at my watch to freeze the moment: It was 2 p.m., October 4, 1964.
“Yes! Yes! Of course I’ll marry you!” I exclaimed.
Larry told me much later that his father hadn’t been able to pay him for the work he’d done all summer for the family cleaning business, so Larry took a second full-time job washing dishes in an Italian restaurant to make installment payments on my engagement ring. Larry wanted to do things right.
Chapter 8
Wham! Wham! Bam! Roy Emerson and Owen Davidson were pounding balls at me as fast as I could return them.
“C’mon, Billie!” Emmo shouted.
“Go, go, go!” Dave-O said.
I wanted to be a full-time player, and now I was getting my wish. This was how the Aussies practiced: two on one, a drill called Threes. Emerson was a twenty-seven-year-old powerhouse who had already won seven of his twelve Grand Slam singles titles. He would stand at the net and try to hit me with the ball as hard as he could. Davidson was my age, at least, a terrific lefthander who sent me around the court like a pinball. After five minutes I thought I was going to collapse—and that was just the first day.
I’ve always said the Australian men made me No. 1, and those sessions were an important part of it. At L.A. State, the women’s and men’s teams practiced together, and a few times I played doubles for our men’s team in non-conference matches. But for the most part, our American men—especially our best players—never thought to include us when they hit together. I thought it was wild that I had to travel to the other side of the world to find top-level men who were open-minded about female accomplishment and didn’t mind training with me.
I wish young players today would do more two-on-one drills. You can’t beat it for all-around training. When the ball hits the ground—boom—another is immediately put in play. There’s a real art to being on the “two” side of the net. Your job is to make the ball go just far enough away from the receiver that the receiver has to work hard to keep the point alive. It sharpens your concentration and teaches you how to control the ball rather than just trying to put away every shot. On the receiving side, the drill gives you an experience that’s closest to a match situation. Your pulse rate keeps climbing as the minutes tick off. We did the drill until we cried “uncle.” If you’re fit enough to make it one against two for twenty minutes nonstop, full out, you build confidence that you can get through the toughest match. Then you rotate positions.
From the moment I arrived on Australian soil, I knew I’d made the right choice. There are plenty of oft-repeated sayings about how champions are made in the moments nobody sees, and it’s true.
* * *
—
I was based in Melbourne, a big, lively, sprawling city on the southeastern tip of Australia. The national tennis championships had always been held there, and the place was packed with tennis enthusiasts. Most of the big houses in Toorak, where Bob Mitchell lived, had courts out back. Toorak was considered the Beverly Hills of Melbourne.
Bob knew all of the finest players in Australia then, and they used his private court for training and practice. He even sent a handful of them to charm school and paid for elocution lessons so they would represent Australia well on the international circuit. When I arrived, Bob set me up with my own room in his house, provided my meals and transportation, and gave me unlimited access to his court. From the outset, I was neck deep in champions, hitting daily with the best of the best. In the Aussie “mate” (or friend) tradition, most of the guys seemed to have nicknames. Along with Emmo and Dave-O, I sometimes played with “Rocket” Rod Laver, Ken “Muscles” Rosewall, and John “Newk” Newcombe, as well as Australia’s best women, Lesley Turner, Robyn Ebbern, and Margaret. Geoff Pollard also came by to play.
I was living a real-time version of that party question, “If you could have dinner with any three people in tennis history, who would you choose?” How would you like to have two of the best players ever, Margaret and Rod, hitting Threes with you? It didn’t happen often, but it did happen. Everyone helped each other. And you can’t tell me the synergy we had didn’t have an impact. The eight of us retired with a combined 208 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Think about that. What a privilege it was to parachute into such a rich and welcoming tennis culture.
I was invited to luncheons and barbeques with everyone from local tennis volunteers to the great Lew Hoad, the former No. 1 amateur and contract pro. A lot of old-timers still swear that Lew was the best tennis player they ever saw. He and his wife, Jen, were kind enough to invite me to drinks at the White City Tennis Club in Sydney to get acquainted. That kind of camaraderie was one of the great things about those glory days of Australian tennis. Everyone was part of a big family, training, traveling, and socializing together. It was so much fun.
During my first phone call with Bob Mitchell, I asked him the obvious questions that anyone would ask: Why did he want to do this for me? What did he want in return? He told me, “I think you deserve it. You don’t have the opportunities some of these Aus
tralian girls like Margaret have to train or travel. And I heard you don’t get much personal coaching.” That was all true. But Mitchell had another reason for reaching out to me that I didn’t know about when I said yes.
He, like the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia, thought Margaret was not appreciative enough of all that had been done for her. In addition to bankrolling her training and travel, Bob had gone the extra mile for Margaret to the point of commissioning a painting of her in 1962 for Australia’s National Portrait Gallery. Bob’s unspoken motivation for bringing me to Australia was his hope that I might teach Margaret some humility—preferably by kicking her ass. Frank Deford, the wonderful Sports Illustrated writer, noted the irony of that a few years later when he wrote that Margaret was responsible, in a roundabout way, for “creating the monster”—me—“that cost her complete domination of her era.”
If Margaret had any misgivings about training alongside a rival such as me, she never let on. Our politics would grow increasingly far apart later in life when she repeatedly attacked the LGBTQ+ community—even kids—and I called her on it. But in 1964 she was, like all the Aussies I met, unfailingly gracious and hospitable. She was a quiet person by nature who kept to herself. But I did get to know her a little better during the four months I was in Australia. We actually had some things in common, from our blue-collar roots to our deep religious faith to our love of our sport.
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