Biography of Billie-Jean King
On womens rights, Billie-Jean King was a major force towards the enactment of title IX provisions of the American civil rights bill which served brought equal rights for women both in and outside the athlete world (Lannin 12). By her participation in the Battle of the Sexes tennis game against Bobby Riggs, King changed the worldview of women as being unable to match the capabilities of men (Schwartz). As a champion for equality and change in the society, King has engaged in helping challenged members of the society. She is currently a director in the Elton John AIDS Foundation, an organization which serves to care for HIVAIDS victims in the community (Womens Sports Foundation).
On sustainable change in the society, King was the main drive behind the launching the GreenSlam initiative (Lannin 16). This initiative is designed for ensuring the implementation of more responsible environmental practices in the sporting industry. With are public declaration as being a lesbian, King is no doubt an international influence in fighting for the recognition of equal rights for lesbian and gay couples in the community.
This paper is a biography of Billie-Jean King. The author takes a look at Billie-Jean Kings personal life, her tennis career, career struggles and success and how this impacted on women tennis in the world. A discussion on the impact of King in fighting for equality of the law for men and women is also given.
Summary of the personal life of Billie-Jean King
Billie-Jean King was born on November 22nd 1943 in Long Beach, California, the first born in conservative Methodist family and a sister brother Randy Moffitt, once a professional baseball player (Lannin 3). After graduating from Long Beach Polytechnic High School, King attended California State University, Los Angeles. This has been closely attributed to her parents financial instability to pay for her education in other universities such as Stanford and University of Southern California.
Billie-Jean was married to Lawrence King on September 1965. However, Kings realization of her interest in 1968 posed a major challenge to their family (Rappoport 5). In 1971 she decided to conduct an abortion without consulting her husband, claiming that her marriage was not secure enough to bring up a child. According to existing information since 1971 King entered into an intimate lesbian relationship with her personal secretary, Marilyn Barnett, an occurrence which only became public in 1981 (Rappoport 8). This was after Marilyn Barnett filed a court case against King.
Although King successfully won the court suit against Marilyn Barnett, her later divorce with Lawrence has found causes from the legal proceedings during the case. King has evidently claimed that the failure of her husbands support during the case triggered a five year couple relationship problems until their divorce in 1987. Trying to justify her divorce, she claimed that she never knew of her same sex orient nature before her marriage. This was further complicated by the homophobic nature of her parents, a factor which forced her to be in a closet (Rappoport 9).
Apart from her tennis and fight for women involvements, Billie-Jean King has engaged in acting. On April 27th, 2007 she appeared as a judge in one of her favorite TV show, law and order, as well as on Ugly Betty in May 21st, 2009 (Schwartz). Owing to her fight for the rights of women and the lesbian and gay couple community, King was in august 12th 2009 awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama (Womens Sports Foundation). She is currently a friend to Elton John. However she lives in New York with her lesbian partner Ilana Kloss.
Tennis playing style and personality
King has been identified as an aggressive tennis player since her initial tennis learning process at the public courts of Long Beach, California. She has an excellent speed crucial for executing are hard-hits. Nevertheless, she is marked with impatience as a weakness, a factor which has not evidently compromised her career. By self confession, King has cited her motivation in life has coming from her perfectionist nature rather than just being a super competitor (Lannin 26). By perfection, King claims not just engaging in executing scoring shots but executing more correctly. This has made her a hard to loose tennis player.
Available information on the personality of King as it influenced her tennis profession show that confidence is all she lived with even when under pressure. Self confidence is a major athlete training requirement. It is only when you belief you can that you win. However, for King this personal value seems to be an inborn one nature by experiences and the challenges she has faced in life (Lannin 28). Just as an evidence of this fact is her self declaration to her parents that she will become the best tennis player in the world when she was young. This was despite are knowledge that her parents could not afford for her quality training.
Flexibility in her game plan has always perfected her winning tactics. King has never allowed her opponents to read are game plan (Voepel). She has always employed relationship dissociation for ensuring her competitive advantage against opponents. Expressing personal feeling can compromise the effectiveness one attacks during competition. Such could also act as a loophole for your opponents to understand and capitalize on your weakness. By always composing her self, never to appear weak to her opponents, King has surely left an unmatched legacy for being the pioneer of women tennis and a world winning tennis champion.
Early tennis career for Billie-Jean King
In 1959, at the age of fifteen, Billie-Jean King played her first tennis match against Justina Bricka at the US championship where she lost (Schwartz). In the same year, while playing in the Middle States Grass Court Championships, King lost at the quarterfinal stage to Nancy Richey. All through that year Billie-Jean King was a loser in all tournaments namely the Pennsylvania Lawn Tennis Championships loosing to Keran Susman and her loss to Kathy Chabot in the Districts Womens Grass Court Championships in Philadelphia among others.
However, despite losing, according to Alice Marble, King had the necessary tools for winning and all she needed was creating confidence in the game and started coaching her. According to King, a statement from Maureen Brinker served the exact opposite as it almost killed her confidence (Lannin31). Brinker had thought that King could live to proof her wrong when she told her that she should not expect to make it, a reverse psychological approach to motivation.
All through her early tennis career, between 1959 and 1965, Billie-Jean King lost most of her tournaments. Despite this fact she gained confidence due to the fact that she had the opportunity to participate in local, national and international championship competitions. This did serve to equip her with enough skills and experience through exposure and competition with more qualified tennis players.
Nevertheless, from the statistics available, Billie-Jean King never went without national and international recognitions owing to a number of wins. Some of these early wins by King are as follows
She defeated Karen Susman in 1960 to win her first adult tournament title during the Districts Womens Grass Court Championships and Philadelphia.
Partnering with Karen Susman, King received international recognition by winning the womens double title at Wimbledon in 1961. The same year she won the Pennsylvania Lawn Tennis Championships after successfully defending her title in Philadelphia (Voepel).
In 1963 she won, for the first time the Southern California Championship finals against Darlene Hard. This year marked Kings first international titles win after finishing first in the Irish Championships.
In 1965, Kings win against Ann Haydon served much as it saw US defeat UK in the sound round during the Federation Cup in Melbourne. During this year, King won six tournaments. Her close loss in the US Championships coupled with the six tournament wins prompted the United States Lawn Tennis Association to recommend her for the sole US No. 1, a move that was overruled during its annual convention in favor of Nancy Richey.
Prime career years and Billie-Jean Kings details achievements
The years between 1966 and 1975 marked the prime career time by King recording a standing 32 of her 39 Grand Slam titles and 97 of her 129 singles title career being a runner up in other 36 tournaments. A summary of the won titles is listed below by type, venue and year.
In 1966, King defeated Margaret Court in the South African Tennis Championships, breaking a nine match losing trend to her. Breaking a five career match lose against Dorothy Cheney, King defeated her to win the semifinals in the Southern California Championships. Still, this year marked Kings first win of the singles title at Wimbledon after defeating Maria Bueno in the finals.
In 1967, she won all her matches in the Federation Cup, defeated her South African Tennis Championships title against Maria Bueno and won her second Grand Slam title after winning all sets in the U.S. Championships among others (Lannin 16). By winning the single, double and mixed doubles title in the U.S. Championships, King became the second women in history after Alice Marble in 1939 to do that.
1968 was marked with Kings winning of the Australian Championships for the first time. She also won three tournaments in Europe and successfully defended her Wimbledon singles title for the third time consecutively.
In 1969 and 1970, King lost most of her tournament. She won two tournaments in South Africa and successfully defended her title in the Irish Championships in 1969. After a knee surgery, King managed to win the Embassy Indoor Tennis Championships in London and the Italian Open for the first time in 1970.
1971 is categorized as Kings career success year despite the fact that she only won one Grand Slam title. She managed to gains a 112-13 win-loss record.
King won six consecutive tournaments in 1972, four consecutive tournaments before winning the famous battle of sexes match against Bobby Riggs in 1973, and seven consecutive tournaments in 1974.
Kings tennis profession however continued until 1990 with during which she defeated a number of titles while managing to win. During this time she played singles, doubles and mixed doubles until from 1984 when she played doubles. She retired from tennis in 1990 having lost her last doubles match against Brenda Schultz at the Virginia Slims of Florida tournament.
The contributions of Billie-Jean King in furthering women tennis
Billie-Jean King has made many contributions in the pioneering and furthering women tennis. First, she fought for the equal prize giving policies for both and women athletes through her public critic of the United States Lawn Tennis Association discriminative pay policies (Voepel). This had a major impact in the societal appreciation fort ending discrimination of female athletes. Indeed, it was by her struggle that many women starting to appreciate athletes as a potentially resourceful career in the society.
Her win in the 1973 battle of sexes against Bobby Riggs, King sufficiently proved that women have a capable of challenging women (Pettegrew, and Dawn 13). By this win held high not the dignity of women athletes but also that of women in the community. Billie-Jean King aided in the founding of the Womens Tennis Association and the Womens Sports Foundation which functions to promote women athletes through training and fighting for their rights.
By as early as 1968, King was conducting part time tennis training to women at Los Angeles State College. In 1990s, King served as a coach of the women Olympic tennis squad of the United States Fed Cup team, where should was the captain (Lannin 41). In 1970s, King became the first women to lead efforts in support of professional women tennis first tour. All this devoted efforts were and still influential in furthering the women tennis talent.
Another strong influence in the women tennis sport brought by King is her personality. With her many strategically played wins, many have lived to admire tennis (Schwartz). She has successful won many tournaments even against otherwise outstanding professional leading her way to become the worlds No. 1. Her confidence and determination by its self is thus an encouragement to women athletes.
Even after the implementation of the equal prize policy by United States Lawn Tennis Association, discrimination never ended (Womens Sports Foundation). However, as a sign of her desire to promote women tennis, she decided not to participate in any tournament without alignment of prizes. Many at the time could have equated her struggle to desire of money. Nevertheless, money gives motivation just the way discriminative actions amount to demoralization. Indeed, owing to her move women athletes are more motivated than they were in the mid twentieth century.
Billie-Jean King on women rights
King has contributed much in the fight for women rights. She was a leading supporter for the enactment of the Title IX of the American constitution (Lannin 45). This title dictates for equal opportunities for all in the community by prohibiting discrimination based on gender in opportunities.
Her victory in the Battle of Sexes marked a turning point on who the society views women (Voepel). Indeed it encouraged parents to respect the rights of daughters as being equal to those of men. Just to be noted here is the fact that were she to lose in the Battle of Sexes, then Bobby Riggs claims which undermined the feminist dignity could have proved right.
King has all through her life strived hard for the realization social justice and equality. Women for the better part are common victims of discriminative practices. By being a director in Elton John AIDS Foundation which functions to serve the undeserved members of the community, King is no doubt an inspiration for the rights of the minorities in the community particularly women (Womens Sports Foundation).
Equality as is defined by many as the implication that all are equal regardless of their individual orientations in the society. King became the first women athlete to publicly declare her lesbian life (Rappoport 32). However, if with the many social discriminations against lesbians and gays, she still successfully made it in her tennis career. This is not only reflective of the right to choice by women but also the need courage in life to stand our way despite the challenges.
The last impact is her contribution to the fight for equal right to lesbian and gay couples (Schwartz). By her choice of life to live as a lesbian, King has instilled in women the courage to lead a happy life by choice rather than by external dictates. She sufficiently defended are cause for aborting and later divorcing her husband, a quality that lack in many. It is in fact due to her struggles that she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2009.
Conclusion
Billie-Jean King has indeed have had much influence both in women rights and women tennis. She fought for equality of prizes for men and women founded the Women Tennis Association and acted as a tennis coach, all of which were made to positively impact on women tennis.
On women rights, she fought the provisions of title IX of our constitution for equal opportunity to all. In the Battle of Sexes, she proved that women can match men in their capabilities thus encouraging the appreciation of women in the society.
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