When it’s okay to sink into a simple chair and take a deep breath with your feet up, everyone reaches the point of life.
Apparently no one has told Billy Jean King this.
King had been filling history books since she was a child in Long Beach, raised by firefighters and housewives.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times since 2001. He has won over 12 National Journalism Awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
She has previously or since won the singles and doubles championships at Wimbledon. She was the world’s number one female tennis player.
She has been raising the flag for decades for gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights in sports and society. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
One evening in 1973, 50 million people adjusted it to the TV and saw her whip in a tennis challenge called “The Battle of the Feses.”
Bobby Riggs poses for Billy Jean King. King won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, including six at Wimbledon, but perhaps her most famous match defeated Riggs in 1973, then occurred in the “Fight of Sex” at 55, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.
(AP News)
But King’s resume, which stretches from one end of Wimbledon’s centre court to the other, missed one thing, and it bothered her. Last year, it was announced last year in a conversation with staff at a New York-based consulting, investment and marketing company. (Yes, she still runs a business and foundation that promotes education, leadership and behaviorism.)
“I hate it not finishing,” she recalls telling her colleague.
They asked what she meant.
“I’m not graduating from college,” she told them. “And, you know, I should finish.”
Yes, how lazy.
This spring, at age 81, Billy Jean King returned to school and pursued his degree, not his trophy, cup or medal.
And there was no doubt in her mind as to where she would register. A school that holds her statue near the court where she was hitting a tennis ball.
Cal State La
(Would anyone be surprised if she went out on the tennis team?)
Many people pause after starting university.
The Kings lasted for 60 years.
Billy Jean King spoke about sexual equality before Washington’s Senate Education Subcommittee on November 9, 1973.
(AP News)
Women who continue to make history are now majoring in it. She took several courses this year, and soon earned her Autumn Bachelor’s Degree and a Bachelor’s Degree in History and is on track for the spring.
“I’m having a great time,” she told me on a video link from her home in New York on Wednesday.
King has not walked campus in his backpack, nor is he hanging with fellow students in the library or food court. Her business venture keeps her on the road and mostly on the east coast, so she films one class remotely with a professor who helped create a flexible schedule.
She also earns course credits for her interactions with other CSULA students who took a somewhat widespread route to her bachelor’s degree.
After I interviewed King, she spoke remotely with 32 prisoners/students at Lancaster’s largest security state prison and emailed me when she was finished.
“They are committed to improving their lives through education,” she says, “Getting their degree will change life for them.”
A few months ago, she did the same hookup as prisoners/students at the California Women’s Institute in Chino. “I wanted to know their stories,” King told me.
She also asked them what they miss most while in prison. She said the answer was pretty straightforward.
During her speech at the announcement of the bronze statue on campus, Billy Jean King begs Cal State student-athletes to “make this world a better place.”
(J. Emilio Flores/Calstatera)
“One woman took full ownership. She said, “I miss my child. I miss freedom… I also miss my husband I killed.”
Yes, that sounds pretty straightforward.
The Kings Fall Class includes US and Latin American history. Her favorite spring semester class was history. This is a study of how historians study and interpret the past.
“It’s like history,” King said.
I felt I wasn’t doing my job if I hadn’t asked about her GPA.
King said he hasn’t received the report card yet, but he hasn’t taken a shortcut to his assignment, and the homework load isn’t exactly light.
“I’ve always just read like crazy,” King said. The social media post praises the value of continuing to engage, learn and grow at all ages next to a stack of assigned texts, including “Contested History in Public Spaces” and “Fighting the Founders.”
Billy Jean King will speak at the Women’s History Month event honoring female athletes in celebration of Title IX’s 50th anniversary on March 9, 2022 at Capitol Hill.
(Jacquelyn Martin/Applications)
She also reads a book on Title IX, a civil rights law that prohibits sexual discrimination in federal funding programs. On that subject, King is more of a teacher than a student. She was an early enduring advocate for Title IX and testified before Congress.
“What they love,” she said of the professor, “I’ve lived some of these historic moments.”
King said she was not embarrassed to point out that she considered the mistakes in telling the history that she is part of it.
“It’s immersing me in the air.”
In that respect, and in other obvious ways, the king is not a typical California student. “It’s been 50 years since we changed the world,” says David Olsen of Communications Research, of King’s achievements.
But in other ways, she is typical.
I was teaching classes at Csula and most of my students were jugglers. They had jobs and family, and many other responsibilities and pursuits, so they weren’t in and out for four years. Like a king, some took a break, but then swung backwards.
“Yeah, I think I’m like them,” King said.
“It’s not too late to go back, it’s not too late to finish,” Olsen said. “To me, coming back is very important and exciting” – especially because completing her education was selective, not a requirement.
“That’s an important lesson to be a lifelong learner,” said Scott Wells, chairman of CSULA’s Department of History. “She doesn’t have to do this for career or financial reasons. It reminds me that higher education isn’t just about getting papers for technical skills or job opportunities. …When I posted on social media, I said, “Here is the book I’m reading.
I asked King, who was at the forefront of so many social justice moves. What it is like to live through this moment of political and cultural history, many of the benefits she fought are under threat, and our heritage is portrayed on government websites as a pioneer of a white-covered wagon.
“What about slavery?” said the king. “Look at the athletes who are about to travel. Look at Jackie Robinson. Look at Altea Gibson.” I learned about the white history of my childhood. “
History repeats itself, King says, “It’s still repeated again today.”
“We were fighting hard for Roe vs. Wade, and we got through that,” she said of the 1973 Landmark Supreme Court decision on women’s reproductive rights. “And now we’re backing back again.”
Her job in the 80s is not to lead resistance, but to ask what she wants for the next generation and provide guidance and support.
“It’s important to know history because the more you know about history, the more you know about yourself,” King said. “But more importantly, it helps you shape the future.”
I had a last question for King. Graduation is a really big deal at California State LA, I told her. Many of the alumni are first-generation university students, and their achievements are celebrated by supporting extended families.
Would you like to walk around the spring stage in a cap and gown?
She smiled.
“I hope I can,” she said, “I would.”
steve.lopez@latimes.com
