Game, Set, Match

by Susan Ware

  Billie Jean King would no doubt find sports feminism too narrow, too confining a legacy. She's for everybody, she says, and so she is. But there is no denying that her actions and example have had the most resonance for women, and that the guiding principles of fairness and equal opportunity that shaped her tennis career and her broader agenda are especially relevant in the larger struggle for women's rights and gender equity. In large part because of the 1973 Battle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King will always be linked in the popular consciousness with the powerful ideas of modern feminism. She fought and won that battle, turning a tennis match into a referendum on gender roles as well as athletic ability. That breakthrough continued to ripple through the rest of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first as future generations of women athletes seized the chance to play and compete. As sprinter Willye White put it in 1998, “Today's young women athletes don't have a clue they’re where they are because of the courage of Billie Jean King.” Or as basketball player Nancy Lieberman observed recently: “Billie Jean King never played basketball, but her fingerprints are on the WNBA. Her fingerprints are on women's professional softball, soccer, golf, tennis, and just about any other sport you can think of. She risked her reputation and her career because she believed so strongly that women should have the right to play on and to be part of a team.”10

  Billie Jean King has always had an incredibly strong sense of history and an almost messianic belief in its relevance for future generations. She understands how difficult it is for a sports figure to create a lasting legacy, to leave something concrete for those who follow. “Performing is very fleeting, it's very intangible, it's very momentary,” she says. “And it's wonderful. But it's not lasting, and if you can do things that last, that each generation can build on, then that's when you’re cooking.”11 Using her tennis celebrity to open doors not just for women in sports but in society as a whole, Billie Jean King's life confirms the proposition that sport truly does matter.

  Notes

  Source Abbreviations

  BJK, Billie Jean (1974)

  Billie Jean King with Kim Chapin, Billie Jean: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Row, 1974)

  BJK, Billie Jean (1982)

  Billie Jean King with Frank Deford, Billie Jean (New York: Viking Press, 1982)

  Dunkle

  Margaret Dunkle Papers

  NOW

  National Organization for Women Records

  PEER

  Project on Equal Education Rights Records

  PSEW

  Project on the Status and Education of Women (Association of American Colleges) Records

  Sandler

  Bernice Resnick Sandler Papers

  SL

  The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

  WEAL

  Women's Equity Action League Records

  WSF Archives

  Women's Sports Foundation Archives, East Meadow, N.Y.

  Prologue

  1 For a general introduction to the match, see Selena Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005).

  2 “The Troubles, and Triumph, of Billie Jean King,” New York Times, May 6, 1981, A30; Bruce Lowitt, “25 years ago, she was King of a cause,” St. Petersburg Times, September 20, 1998, 1C; Jere Longman, “Soccer's Move: Grass Roots to Grand Stage,” New York Times, July 10, 1999, D1.

  3 Billie Jean King, “I Just Had to Win,” Tennis, August 1998, 30; Barbara Huebner, “When King Reigned,” Boston Globe, November 18, 1998, C7; BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 170; “The Hustler Outhustled,” Newsweek, October 1, 1973, 63. See also Lucinda Hahn, “The shots heard ’round the World,” Tennis, August 1998, 22.

  4 Dan Wakefield, “My Love Affair with Billie Jean King,” Esquire, October 1974, 138.

  5 George Solomon, “Queen Ready for King,” Washington Post, February 5, 1973, D4; Hahn, “The shots heard ‘round the World,” 25.

  6 Joel Drucker, “The Battles of the Sexist,” Tennis, August 1998, 33; Nora Ephron, “Bobby Riggs, The Lady-Killer,” New York Magazine, September 10, 1973, 53. See also Tom LeCompte, The Last Sure Thing: The Life and Times of Bobby Riggs (Easthamp-ton, Mass.: Skunkworks Publishing, 2003).

  7 JoeJares, “Riggs to Riches—Take Two,” Sports Illustrated, September 10, 1973, 24–25. Chapter 1 of Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, describes the match.

  8 See, for example, Pete Axthelm, “The Battle of the Sexes,” Newsweek, September 24, 1973, 82–85; and “How Bobby Runs and Talks, Talks, Talks,” Time, September 10, 1973, 54–60.

  9 Jares, “Riggs to Riches,” 25; LeCompte, The Last Sure Thing, 298; Ephron, “Bobby Riggs, The Lady-Killer,” 53.

  10 Axthelm, “The Battle of the Sexes,” 85.

  11 Wakefield, “My Love Affair with Billie Jean King,” 138; John Leonard, “When She Was King,” New York Magazine, May 1, 2006, 118. The quote appeared in the HBO documentary that Leonard was reviewing, Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer, which first aired on April 26, 2006.

  12 William Gildea, “Tennis Match Just Last Act,” Washington Post, September 20, 1973, D1; Michael Murray, “Media,” Commonweal, October 19, 1973, 63; “One Vote for Billie Jean,” Wall Street Journal, September 18, 1973, 20. The editorial reasoned that she was the better player but couldn't resist adding, “And never let it be said we never stuck out our necks on behalf of women's liberation.”

  13 Axthelm, “The Battle of the Sexes,” 85; Grace Lichtenstein, “Mrs. King Calls Victory ‘Culmination’ of Career,” New York Times, September 21, 1973, 31. Lichtenstein also wrote a book about her year following the women's tour, which prominently mentioned the role Marilyn Barnett played in Billie Jean King's life. See Grace Lichtenstein, A Long Way, Baby: The Inside Story of the Women in Pro Tennis (New York: William Morrow, 1974).

  14 Murray, “Media,” 63; Barry Tarshis, “A Lot Preceded the Ms.-Match,” New York Times, September 23, 1973, 215. Originally Jack Kramer had been scheduled to be a commentator on ABC, but King threatened to pull out of the match entirely if he was onscreen because he had been so antagonistic to women's tennis. See chapter 1.

  15 Erik Brady, “King-Riggs match took a giant step for equality,” USA Today, September 18, 1998, 9C; King, “I Just Had to Win,” 26.

  16 King, “I Just Had to Win,” 28. This was such a favorite phrase that she chose it for the title of a recent book: Billie Jean King, Pressure Is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes (New York: LifeTime Media, 2008).

  17 William Gildea, “Ms. King Puts Mr. Riggs in His Place,” Washington Post, September 21, 1973, A1; “How King Rained on Riggs’ Parade,” Time, October 1, 1973, 111.

  18 For a synopsis of the match, see “The Texas Showdown: Key Moments in the Match,” Tennis, August 1998, 29. For her recollections, see King, Pressure Is a Privilege, passim.

  19 Curry Kirkpatrick, “There She Is, Ms. America,” Sports Illustrated, October 1, 1973, 32; King, “I Just Had to Win,” 29. LeCompte, The Last Sure Thing, 367–72, settles the case of whether Riggs threw the match definitively.

  20 Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 131; Christine Brennan, Best Seat in the House: A Father, A Daughter, A Journey through Sports (New York: Scribner, 2006), 83.

  21 For a good introduction to Title IX, see LindaJean Carpenter and R. Vivian Acosta, Title IX (Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2005). See also chapter 2.

  22 The term “second-wave feminism,” while not without its detractors, serves as a useful shorthand designation for the period of feminist activism in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. I use it interchangeably with “modern feminism.” The term was originally coined to distinguish it from the woman suffrage movement (the so-called first wave). Younger feminists in the 1990s adopted the designation “third-wave” to describe their unique generational take on the movement.

  23 For general histories of
second-wave feminism, see Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (New York: Viking, 2000); Sara M. Evans, Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End (New York: Free Press, 2003); Estelle Freedman, No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women (New York: Ballantine, 2002); and Gail Collins, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009).

  24 “How Bobby Runs and Talks, Talks, Talks,” 60. The article was quite prescient when it pointed out that “five years ago these superheated matches could not have happened, and five years from now they would not mean anything.”

  25 Lichtenstein, A Long Way, Baby, 150; Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 2.

  26 Joel Drucker, “Billie Jean King: Leveling the Playing Field,” Biography, September 1998, 102; Billie Jean King, Publisher's Letter, womenSports, October 1976, 4.

  27 Carol Slezak, “Ahead of Her Time; King focuses on a vision of sports that is equitable … and fun,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 16, 1997, 15.

  28 Grace Lichtenstein, “Billie Jean King, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Me,” Redbook, November 1974, 104–5.

  29 In addition to Carpenter and Acosta, Title IX, see Welch Suggs, A Place on the Team: The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005); and Susan Ware, Title IX: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007).

  30 Eleanor Roosevelt quoted in Ruby A. Black, “Is Mrs. Roosevelt a Feminist?” Equal Rights, July 27, 1935, 163. Sometimes liberal feminism is referred to as “me-too feminism” or “piece of the pie” feminism. For a fuller discussion of its importance to twentieth-century women's history, see Susan Ware, Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993).

  31 See Alison M. Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld Publishers, 1983); and Zillah Eisenstein, The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism (New York: Longman, 1981).

  32 See, for example, the opening epigraph to her 1982 autobiography: “I have always disliked the labels that were arbitrarily placed on me, whether in feminist, heroic, or less flattering terms. This book may serve to remove some of those misconceptions. At times I may be tough and at other times extremely sensitive. I’m an individual. Those closest to me have always recognized this, and have allowed me to be my own person.” BJK, Billie Jean (1982).

  Chapter One

  1 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 18; Carol Slezak, “Ahead of Her Time; King focuses on a vision of sports that is equitable … and fun,” Chicago Sun-Times, March 16, 1997, 15.

  2 James Stewart-Gordon, “Billie Jean King—Queen of the Rackets,” Reader's Digest, June 1974, 155; Robert Lipsyte, “Softening Sports’ Culture Shock,” New York Times, May 6, 1994, B16; Sally Jenkins, “Racket Science,” Sports Illustrated, April 29, 1991, 69. King was one of four athletes; the others were Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson.

  3 Deborah Larned, “The Bodacious Billie Jean King,” womenSports, May 1977, 60.

  4 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 47.

  5 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 29–30; Selena Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game (New York: Crown Publishers, 2005), 50. In addition to his work as a firefighter, Moffitt later served as a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers. He retired from the Long Beach Fire Department in 1977, and he and Betty retired to Prescott, Arizona. Obituaries of Bill Moffitt appeared in the Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2006, and the Globe and Mail (Canada), June 20, 2006.

  6 John Leonard, “When She Was King,” New York Magazine, May 1, 2006, 118. He used similar language in “Billie Jean King: An Existential Success,” New York Times, June 30, 1982, B9.

  7 Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), chapter 1; Eric Anderson, In the Game: Gay Athletes and the Cult of Masculinity (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 1. Anderson should know: in 1993 he came out as the first openly gay track coach at a southern California high school.

  8 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 30; Frank Deford, “Mrs. Billie Jean King,” Sports Illustrated, May 19, 1975, 74.

  9 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 30, 48; Betty Moffitt, “My Daughter, Billie Jean by her Mother,” Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1974, 141; BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 11.

  10 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 181; Anne Taylor Fleming and Annie Leibovitz, “The battles of Billie Jean King,” Women's Sports & Fitness, September/October 1998, 130.

  11 “When I was a little girl, I took piano lessons, sang in the glee club, and dreamed of Ricky Nelson; I also climbed trees, shot baskets, and threw spirals. That, I was told, made me a tomboy.… My mother wanted me to be a lady; my father wanted me to be an athlete or better yet, an athletic lady.” Billie Jean King, Publisher's Letter, womenSports, August 1977, 4.

  12 Susan Ware, Letter to the World: Seven Women Who Shaped the American Century (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 169.

  13 Billie Jean King, Publisher's Letter, womenSports, June 1974, 4; Jim Murray quoted in Johnette Howard, The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova: Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship (New York: Broadway Books, 2005), 46–47.

  14 “Billie Jean King,” in Lynn Gilbert and Gaylen Moore, eds., Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Have Shaped Our Times (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981), 173–74.

  15 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 27. There are multiple versions of this story; another involves a conversation while drying the dishes.

  16 Moffitt, “My daughter, Billie Jean,” 141; Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 67.

  17 Moffitt, “My daughter, Billie Jean,” 142.

  18 Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 54; U.S. Senate, Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Subcommittee on Education, Hearings on the women's Educational Equity Act, October 17 and November 9,1973, 93rd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973), 83.

  19 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 51; Robert Lipsyte, “If I Were King,” New York Times, March 28, 1968, 63.

  20 For stories from that world of tennis, see Bud Collins, My Life with the Pros (New York: Dutton, 1989); and Ted Tinling with Rod Humphries, Love and Faults: Personalities Who Have Changed the History of Tennis in My Lifetime (New York: Crown Publishers, 1979).

  21 Here is King on Perry Jones: “In those days, before open tennis, the amateur pooh-bahs, like Mr. Jones (everybody always called him Mr., and I can't stop myself from doing it even now, no matter how much I disliked the man), could make or break you. Mr. Jones had even more power because, at least until about this time, Southern California produced a preponderance of the best players in the country. He was a fussy old bachelor who hated girls. The boys got all the breaks in the Association. Of course, it helped to have money, too. If you did, the parents could donate some and get a tax write-off, and then Mr. Jones would use the money to send the rich parents’ kid off to the tournament. It was a public-service laundering.” BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 53.

  22 For a general history of tennis, see Billie Jean King with Cynthia Starr, We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988). Also of interest are the memoirs by the leading players of the day, such as Helen Wills, Fifteen-Thirty (New York: C. Scribner's, 1937); Althea Gibson, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958); Alice Marble, The Road to Wimbledon (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946); and Helen Hull Jacobs, Beyond the Game (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1936).

  23 King and Starr, We Have Come a Long Way, 76–78.

  24 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 53.

  25 John Jeansonne, “Tennis’ Serve to Billie Jean,” Newsday, August 29, 2006, A04. See also the epilogue.

  26 See Marble's posthumously published autobiography: Alice Marble with Dale Leatherman, Courting Danger: My Adventures in World-Class Tennis, Golden-Age Hollywood, and High-Stakes Spying (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1991). Her New York Times obituary on December 24, 1990, quoted her as having only two regrets about her tennis career: “I did not get to see myself on television and I did not get to play the tie breaker.”

  27 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 81.

  28 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 37; Marble, Courting Danger, 245–46; BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 38. King claims she later learned that Connolly was just trying to use reverse psychology to goad her to higher performance.

  29 Grace Lichtenstein, “Straight Talk from Billie Jean King,” Seventeen, May 1974, 38, 43; Molly Haskell, “Hers,” New York Times, March 4, 1982, C2.

  30 Faces in the Crowd, July 17, 1961, included in Sports Illustrated special issue, December 15, 2006, 36; BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 115, 219.

  31 John Lovesey, “Better than Fancy Pants,” Sports Illustrated, July 15, 1963, 12–15.

  32 Picture caption, Washington Post, July 3, 1963, A23; Lovesey, “Better than Fancy Pants,” 14; “Little Miss Moffitt,” Time, July 6, 1962, 50; Fred Tupper, “Billie Jean Moffitt's Bon Mots Create Army of Fans in Gallery,” New York Times, July 1, 1963, 44.

  33 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 190; Jenkins, “Racket Science,” 71; Parton Keese, “Billie Jean King: An Attitude, Instinct and Sense of Urgency,” New York Times, January 14, 1976, 45.

  34 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 50–53.

  35 Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 60–64.

  36 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 56.

  37 BJK, Billie Jean (1974), 54–55.

  38 King always credited her husband, Larry, with initially pushing her toward a feminist standpoint: “My interest in women's Lib comes from my husband Larry. He got me thinking about it in sports a long, long time ago. You know, the men are really behind us. It's the women who keep us down.” Quoted in Judy Klemesrud, “Billie Jean King Scores an Ace at a Fund-raising Rally,” New York Times, October 21, 1972, 24.