Billie Jean King Biography Quotes 43 Report mistakes

Early Life and Introduction to Sport
Billie Jean King was born on November 22, 1943, in Long Beach, California, into a close-knit working-class family. Her father, Bill Moffitt, was a firefighter, and her mother, Betty, worked at home raising Billie Jean and her younger brother, Randy, who later became a Major League Baseball pitcher. Athletic and competitive from a young age, she first excelled in softball but gravitated to tennis after borrowing a racket and discovering public courts near home. Guided by early mentors on those courts and driven by her own discipline, she developed an aggressive, attacking game. She attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School and later Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles), leaving full-time studies as her competitive career accelerated. In 1965 she married Larry King (not the broadcaster), who became an important partner in her early advocacy and business ventures in the sport.

Rise to Prominence
King won her first major title as a teenager at Wimbledon in 1961, capturing the women's doubles championship with Karen Hantze (later Karen Hantze Susman). Her serving, net play, and court sense emerged as hallmarks, and by the mid-1960s she was among the leading players in the world. She claimed her first Wimbledon singles title in 1966, repeating in 1967 and 1968, and cultivated both rivalry and camaraderie with contemporaries such as Margaret Court and Rosie Casals. Casals, her frequent doubles partner, matched King's competitive fire and helped redefine the speed and athleticism of the women's game.

Grand Slam Success and Playing Style
A relentless serve-and-volleyer, King brought forward-thinking tactics and fearlessness to center court. Over her career she amassed 39 Grand Slam titles across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles, including 12 in singles. She completed the career Grand Slam in singles by winning the Australian Open (1968), Roland Garros (1972), Wimbledon (multiple years), and the US Open (multiple years). Her Wimbledon singles crowns in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, and 1975 made her one of the event's all-time great champions. Despite knee injuries and the demands of a globe-trotting schedule, she remained a fixture near the top of the sport across the late 1960s and early 1970s, often cited as the world's best player in those years.

Building a Tour and a Movement
King believed that women athletes deserved equal opportunity, respect, and pay. In 1970 she joined the group later known as the Original 9, alongside players including Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Julie Heldman, Peaches Bartkowicz, Judy Tegart Dalton, Kerry Melville Reid, Kristy Pigeon, and Valerie Ziegenfuss. With the support of publisher Gladys Heldman, they signed symbolic $1 contracts and formed a separate circuit that became the Virginia Slims tour. In June 1973 King helped unify players and establish the Women's Tennis Association in London, serving as a driving force and early president. That same year, after sustained lobbying, the US Open became the first Grand Slam to award equal prize money to women and men.

The Battle of the Sexes
On September 20, 1973, King faced Bobby Riggs in the Houston Astrodome in the match billed as the Battle of the Sexes. With tens of thousands in attendance and a massive television audience, the spectacle carried cultural weight far beyond tennis. King defeated Riggs in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, rebuking the notion that top women could not compete under pressure and galvanizing a broader conversation about gender equality. The event, which followed Riggs's earlier win over Margaret Court, turned King into a household name and a symbol for women's rights.

World TeamTennis and Cultural Reach
In 1974 King co-founded World TeamTennis with Larry King and others, introducing a coed team format and community-based franchises. She played for the Philadelphia Freedoms and befriended Elton John, who dedicated his song "Philadelphia Freedom" to her and the team. The league brought together stars across generations, including Casals and, later, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, blending spectacle with substance and offering another platform for equitable treatment of women in professional sport.

Later Career, Coaching, and Mentorship
King continued to win titles into the late 1970s, including major doubles successes; her partnership with Martina Navratilova was especially fruitful. After stepping back from singles, she remained active in doubles and mixed doubles and then transitioned into leadership and coaching. She captained the United States in the Fed Cup (now Billie Jean King Cup), guiding squads that included players such as Lindsay Davenport and the Williams sisters. Her presence on the bench and in the locker room reinforced the player-first ethos she had championed as an organizer.

Advocacy, Personal Life, and Public Service
A pioneer for women in sport, King also pressed for the wider implementation and defense of Title IX and co-founded the Women's Sports Foundation in 1974 with Olympic champion Donna de Varona to expand opportunities for girls and women. In 1981, after a highly publicized "palimony" lawsuit brought by Marilyn Barnett, King acknowledged a same-sex relationship; though she lost significant corporate endorsements in the short term, she became a forthright advocate for LGBTQ inclusion in sports. Her long-term partnership with former player and executive Ilana Kloss has been a bedrock of her personal and professional life; together they have supported numerous initiatives in tennis and beyond. The couple later became part of the ownership group of the Los Angeles Dodgers, underscoring her civic and cultural reach. King also launched the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative to promote workplace equality and inclusive leadership.

Honors and Enduring Legacy
King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2006 the USTA named its New York home the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where Arthur Ashe Stadium hosts the US Open, linking her name with that of another pathbreaking champion, Arthur Ashe. In 2009 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, recognition of her decades-long fight for equal rights. Rivals and peers such as Chris Evert, Margaret Court, and Martina Navratilova helped define the eras she dominated; younger stars, including Venus and Serena Williams, have credited her advocacy for helping create the conditions in which they could thrive.

Impact
Billie Jean King transformed tennis from the inside out, pairing world-class play with institution-building: the WTA, World TeamTennis, and the Women's Sports Foundation. She proved that athletes could be effective activists and organizers, and that excellence on court could coexist with an unrelenting push for equity off it. Her career united competition, community, and conscience, leaving a durable framework for opportunity that continues to shape sport and culture.

Our collection contains 43 quotes who is written by Billie, under the main topics: Motivational - Wisdom - Never Give Up - Learning - Sports.

• Wikipedia