Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer shows the dedication and drive that women had to have in order to be successful at sports in the twentieth contrary. Billie Jean King who came from a very athletic family first got her inspiration to succeed at sports from the athletic sermons she herd in church every Sunday as a young child. One of her friends was starting to play tenses and she wanted to start also. After working around the neighborhood to earn the

At age five, Billie Jean King knew she was going to do something wonderful when she grew up. Eventually, she did do something great by making an immense difference in the equality for women in sports. Billie Jean King was a women’s tennis player who fought for equality for women in the athletic world. She was an advocate for women’s rights in sports by working for women to have equal opportunities as men in athletics. Billie Jean King had a profound effect in the equality for women in sports. A tennis

Billie Jean King, the first female athlete to admit her homosexuality, was born on November 22, 1943 in the city of Long Beach, California. Both Billie and her brother Randy excelled in athletics as kids. Billie played softball at the age of 10, but that eventually ended because her parents insisted that she play a more “ladylike” sport. She developed an interest in tennis and began to play and practice at the Long Beach public courts. King started receiving coaching from Alice Marble and won her

Similarly, Billie Jean King broke barriers in her sport to change the perception of females in the athletic and professional worlds forever. When King began her tennis career in the early 1960’s, just about nobody paid attention to women’s sports. In 1971, only one percent of collegiate athletic budgets were going to women’s sports and the ratio of male to female high school athletes was 12.5 to 1 (Impact of Title IX). However, King quickly organized a group of female tennis players to travel around

Grand Slam to offer equal pay for men and women in 1973, after women’s champion Billie Jean King threatened to organize a boycott of the tournament” (Shuster). Billie Jean King has been an advocate for equality from a young age due, in part, to the fact that growing up she was discriminated against at tennis clubs because her parents did not have a great deal of money. Even though many people at the clubs disliked King, she excelled, started to play in major tournaments and quickly earned her place

Sports. Generally seen as being controlled and played by men, with women often being left in the shadows lacking the same degree of acknowledgement by the media and society as a whole. Billie Jean King, a world famous tennis player throughout the second half of the twentieth century was determined to change this stigma. She was not only a tennis player, but an activist for female equality and by merging these two passions together she has helped to make great strides in the equality of women. Throughout

contributes to their personal development. Billie Jean King is a person who learned how to become a champion when she explains what it means, "King was perplexed. She had never built such a commanding lead in such an important match. But then she had a Eureka! Moment. All at once, she understood what a champion was someone who could raise their level of play when they needed to" (95). A match is volleyball where there is a completion, and people are competing together. King usual role is to play volleyball

There is an old saying about being in the right place at the right time, and for female athlete Billie Jean, this statement could have been her life motto. Billie Jean had the right ambition, attitude, and abilities to take the tennis world by storm and prove to the world that women could be more than cute housewife's who occasionally hit a ball around. Billie Jean’s father, Bill Moffit, encouraged his tomboy daughter to play sports, however, her first realization about her future as a professional

Zaharias, the All-American Professional Girls Baseball League, Billie Jean King, and the 1999 United States Women’s World Cup

countless social, economic, cultural, and legal issues since the 1800s all throughout the 1900s. A great amount of those issues revolve around diversity and, more specifically, women’s equity in sports. The “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match where Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs is one of the most prominent events from the 20th century that made a significant mark on sports and the sport business world, particularly on women’s involvement in sports. The “Battle of the Sexes” was a key victory for