Billie Jean King Essay

As Billie Jean King once stated, “It is very hard to be a female leader. While it is assumed that any man, no matter how tough, has a soft side... and female leader is assumed to be one-dimensional.” King was best known for her long and successful tennis career. She was born November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California. In both word and action, she revolutionized sports for women, most famously by winning the 1973 “battle of the sexes”. As years passed, Billie Jean King learned that women can be superior as well and brought recognition to all women athletes. Eventually, she wrote a book called Pressure is a Privilege, explaining the lessons she had learned throughout her life, and her experiences from battle of the sexes. American tennis player

Willard was an engineer for the fire department and Betty was a homemaker. King and her brother Randy, who is a former baseball player for the San Francisco Giants, were encouraged by their parents as children to excel into becoming athletes. King’s father always encouraged her to play softball at the fire departments picnics, but she found interest in playing tennis. Raised in a conservative Methodist family, King learned how to play tennis on the public courts near her home. When she was fourteen she won her first championship in a southern California tournament. She was married to Lawrence King from 1965 to 1987. During the 1970s, she had an intimate relationship with her secretary, Marilyn Barnett, and became one of the first prominent American athletes to openly admit to having a gay relationship when it became public some 10 years later. King has been fighting for equal opportunities since she was twelve years old. Since she began to play tennis she has always wanted to be number one, and for the rest of her life she wanted to pursue that dream alongside with bringing recognition to all women athletes. As she was playing in the courts she looked around, and noticed that the game has white balls, white people, white clothes, white shoes, and white socks but where was everybody else, and that was the beginning of her thinking. Then she started to the about the rest of the world and society, and

The Battle of the Sexes is a title given to three notable tennis matches between a male and a female player. The first match was between Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court, over the best of three sets. The second was a nationally televised match between Riggs and Billie Jean King, over the best of five sets. During an interview Billie Jean King stated that as soon as she heard Court lost against Riggs it was a must to compete against him (Piers Morgan Interview). Bobby Riggs was one of the top-ranked U.S. players in the 1930s and 1940s, and he was also King’s hero. She believed that she beat Riggs only because she respected him so much. The moment she won marked the day that she showed recognition to all women athletes. King also received reactions from men in their forties, fifties, and sixties who have daughters saying that the battle changed them. For instance, President Obama watched the Battle when he was thirteen, and he told King how it influenced him. Now he has two daughters and he makes sure that they have equal opportunities as boys. Not just for his children, but for the rest of the United States. This was all because King showed the world the men and women can be