Johnette Howard, "All In - An Autobiography" : CSPAN2 : August 12, 2024 4:50am-6:15am EDT : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive (2024)

tonight's speaker and the

prominent sports journalist johnette howard began her career at the detroit free press, an nba and olympics writer. her has been collected in non anthologies, most notably the 2000 publication edited david halberstam titled the best american writing of the century. she's well known nationally through her work as a commentator for espn, as a pulitzer prize nominated sports columnist for newsday, as a senior writer for sports illustrated, and as a columnist for the washington post.

she is the author of two books. the first of which was titled the rivals. chris everett versus martina navratilova. their epic duels and extraordinary friendship. that book was called by the times of london, quote, beautifully constructed vivid and enthralling and the los angeles times reviewer hailed it as, quote, splendidly written. it reads like a sort of cultural history of the 1970s and eighties. her second book and the basis of our presentation tonight is titled all in on which she collaborated billie jean king to produce king's, published in 2021. the book debuted number five on the new york times best seller list and was characterized by one reviewer as a memoir, bristling with energy and passion. please join me in welcoming the

university of mary washington and to the great last program, one of america's most distinguished sportswriters, john out of howard. good evening. appreciate you coming. i'd like to thank mr. cawley, i'd like to thank ali here. i'd like to thank everyone who's had a hand sponsoring this event and welcoming the campus it's been a beautiful night far, and i hope i don't ruin it. i i welcome any opportunity. talk about billie jean king. she is somebody who's on if you meet her or even just, uh, she's very funny because she she likes to say she's just a firefighter's kid from long beach, which you is kind of true and kind of not. she was a product prodigy is

athlete two time wimbledon in doubles by 20 and by then she had already sort of embarked on this dual career as an activist and she won 39 major titles at all in all 20 at wimbledon which was a record at the time. but that may be the least of what she's done. i mean, you can look at her career as an athlete and her career as an activist and arguably the latter is what's made her the american icon that she's become she remains indispensable force in the fight for equity and opportunity and inclusion, not just in sports, but the workplace and beyond. she's a she's been honored one of the greatest athletes of the century and also is one of the most 100 most important people of the 20th century. by time magazine, she's a past recipient of the president's

medal of honor for president obama gave that to her and a host of other international and humanitarian awards and may soon have the congressional medal of honor she's campaigned for political causes, testified before congress and consulted on legislation. her reach is enormous the sweep of her life is daunting to try to. capsulize in the last year alone, she's continued her activism by helping to start a professional women's hockey league. she's she hosted a pbs on game changers. she opened the london office for two of her businesses. the billie king leadership initiative and billie jean king enterprises, which both promote diversity, inclusion and progressive causes. she's established an award to

promote women's sports coverage. she's always argued that it why would people about us if they don't know us, if they don't get a chance to see where touchable and real it's always been a part of her philosophy she's lobbied for investment for causes including a cosmetic company for women of color that she's very passionate about. she continues to fight for lgbtq rights and oppose rollbacks on things like women's reproductive rights and equity inclusion initiatives. she's an advisor to people and mentor a business incubator and she's also somehow time to appear on the masked singer show and more recently, in a op with elmo, the sesame street, who is or isn't gay, depending on whether you watch fox or msn, abc.

so. in the past year, she also outlasted attempts in florida to ban her children's book, which has been around a while. it's called i am billie jean king, an effort that eventually turned back. so she's fascinating combination of somebody who has this macro vision and amazing, prescient. this literally changed the world and yet she also has this decency on individual level that people always get to see and it would be, i think, bracing the people to see how much she really cares. i have in the process of doing the book, we would be places and we would see we would see a woman clutching a racket from the seventies come up to and thank her for what she did. and go up the loading dock. and there be a latino man with a

translator was a janitor at the school who asked her to please call his daughter because. she was being bullied for being different and she's evangelii in her her care for people and she really lives this ethic that she believes everyone everyone, this of sanctity of human and the respect that they deserve. and regardless of her celebrity or the things that she's done it doesn't change. i've seen it countless times over the years, and i was a a beneficiary of when i was working on my first book, i barely knew. and she said i told her i was coming to wimbledon to do some research. and she and her partner said, i've just come stay with us. and i said, it's like, really? and said, yeah. so i stayed on a roll away bed in the living room. mary carillo, the tv.

we had the real bedroom, but i lucked out because billy doesn't really get going until about 11 at night and would start to tell these stories and you know, stories some of them unprintable. and it was it was an education really the history of tennis. one of the best times in my life got no sleep, but it was worth it. you know, she's kind of dovetailing what i was said about her interest in individuals, just policy and the macro level stuff. she's for a long has been she's a classroom in lower side of manhattan and. she goes there all the time and. it's this rock william thing. we have a picture it where she stands there. all these little kids line up, single file and i'll give her a hug. and one day she was looking at one of them and little kid was squinting and billy has notoriously bad eyesight and and

when she was a she said, i recognize that look, when she was a kid a teacher had noticed that she couldn't read was getting all the math problems wrong on the blackboard and told her parents she needed glasses and her vision was 2400 something and of course, being her, she said afterwards, i had the eyes of a fighter pilot. so she saw this kid squinting, said, i. this look arranged for a mobile eye exam truck to come and everyone got free exams and whomever needed glasses got glasses. it's just the kind of stuff she does. i should also mention at this point she just turned 80 in november. so some other things to know about her. before we get to some of the things she's done, even though she works indefatigably to drum up investment and leverage

power, you know, her interest has always been to effect lasting she's she's not in material things money though she she will concede money is important for the power and influence it brings that's her interest. she still lives in new york city in, the same manhattan apartment she's had since the seventies. and the philosophy that she and her partner of 40 years, a lot class have deciding which business ventures to undertake as well. this do some good and if not they say they cross it the list they say they want to do well and do good and that's governs pretty much everything they do. in their transition from. being an athlete into businesses which very proud of and has also been groundbreaking in a lot of ways. she's an investor. pardon owner in the l.a. dodgers

and wnba, l.a. sparks. and it's a funny story about that. when mark walter, the hedge fund billionaire, approached her, at first he asked her, how would you like to invest? in the l.a. sparks, the women's basketball team? and she said, what about the dodgers he? well, what about the dodgers? and, you know, she got her way way. she's also an investor in. the national women's sports league team in los angeles angel city. fc, she is an investor in women's pro volleyball, which also has a and club component to get girls interested in sports. and of course, she's still involved in tennis. couple of years ago, the fed cup, the female of the davis cup and men's was renamed the billie king cup in her honor and remains the largest annual women's sports event in the world. the national tennis center,

where the u.s. open is, was renamed for a few years back. the billie jean king national tennis center and that was a first for women athlete in america. she still keeps up a travel schedule that would shame people decades and that includes when she was celebrating last year, the 50th anniversary of many of the milestones that she achieved in 73, including the founding of the women's tennis tour. and one of my cranky sportswriter friends called me and said, good god, i'm seeing billie jean king tv more than my relatives. i haven't seen my relatives as much lately. she may also be the hippest stocks the generation alive. i or one day when we were sitting at the table doing some

stuff, she looks up at me apropos of nothing and she said you know i'm the original o.g. right? like original gangster. and i said, oh you think so? and she said well, who else would it be. sir? but that's billie. so the reasonable question right about here, you know, where does she get the energy to do this? and i mean, part of the answer is she is absolutely nourished by the idea that she's making a difference in people's lives. and as corny as it sounds it's it's what literally her out of bed every day and gets her going. when i one of the times i shared cab with her we were in london we passed a tennis court and it was and she got -- because it was empty. she's like, god, where is

everybody. but that's all she is. you know, i used to kid her about the hours you keep because she loves to sleep in and she's always defend herself by saying, hey, i'm still from the seventies, leave me alone. you know, last couple of years she's also joking about how she's yelling at her staff. they're weekly planning meetings. you reminding them of age and saying, what am i doing? what are we doing? time's running out real. i mean, now and i'm going to be mad if i die before i get everything done, i want to get done. and she means it. i mean, there has been definite uptick. she's gone from frenetic to crazy as far as what she's doing now and so much of what's animating now, i think, is that so much of what she and others fought for is being today and

she tells everyone she into now we can't relax. we can't relax. she takes a lot of i guess inspiration from the coretta scott king quote about how freedom, a struggle that's never really wore on. it's argued and we argued with each generation and you have to keep fighting for it. billie believes that and she also likes an old frederick douglass, quote quote, that she learned long ago about how power cedes nothing without the man and, you know, her her natural set point is. show admits she gets frustrated like everybody else. the tenor of things. you know, i think she feels there's a meanness afoot. i think that she feels like there is a cultural debate going

on that's regressive. i'm not just for democrat or other democratic societies, but for this country and she says she's been places where she says she's seen people signs, you know, plaintive, complain it's like, i can't believe we still have to argue this. and you know, as someone who has a lot of skin in the fight, she gets frustrated, too. but she says looked. when she gets frustrated, she reminds herself that the ugliness can help us because it unites us by irritating us and it can bring us together. that's been our experience in the past. so so, you know another question, when you get to this juncture, contemplating billie jean is how does a person like happen? like, you know, where do they from? why do they think they can do this?

and, you know, everyone has a creation story. looking back, you can see the planks of personality fallen into place even when she was a kid and in long beach, she's remarkably consistent. there influences the ribbon through her life that still inform and and shape her ethos today in ways that have hardly changed in some ways. in other words, she's remarkably adroit at adjusting. the context of when she came is important because she was born 1943, born in the wartime forties. she was raised in the buttoned fifties when there was a lot of pressure to conform. and she came of age during the the rebellions and tumult, the sixties, the civil rights

movement, the anti-war movement, both the women's liberation, women's fights for reproductive rights, protections from harassment were just a new concept in law. ruth bader ginsburg, champ earning equal treatment in the workplace and lgbt rights, would come later. but she was married. she went l.a. state and was married 19 to larry king, first boyfriend. he was 18 and later when he went to law school. they lived in berkeley. which was then the center of the radical universe in america. and that was also flung her into a sort of different milieu where. she was exposed to a lot of people that she had not encountered before. hippies people who had gone south to work in the civil rights fight and voter registration, things there were

sit ins they could, she said. they used to be able to smell a lot of pot wafting down the street. national guard would come in and break. there was a moratorium on student gatherings on campus for a while. civil disobedience, things. there were a lot. oakland was a place where vietnam soldiers were processed thousands of them. and a lot of the people from berkeley would go over and kind of protest war there. so as an educator for her and far different from her family background, her bill moffitt had enlisted in the navy during world war two, and he was a firefighter. he returned. he was the kind of guy whose eyes still up at the playing in national anthem. he tried being a policeman first, but he said he couldn't do it because he identified too much with the people that were down on their luck, he would feel sorry for them and say, i'll just go home.

so her mother was a homemaker and would sometimes work jobs and help them make ends meet. sold tupperware avon she had one brother randy moffett sports for a family affair in their house and her father had been a terrific around athlete is is a kid and played baseball and basketball junior college against jackie when he was in the early area and he was later recruited to play pro basketball as well her mother was a terrific open water swimmer and randy randy her only slim sibling, eventually became a major league pitcher for quite a while. and this was after declared to his parents not long. billy did that. he intended to be a pro athlete.

and they were they thought, oh, no, no, you too. they were out, too, cause i am taking them both to games and and billy likes to tell the story of how she and randy used to sit around convinced. they were going to make it someday so they would practice autograph and these big florid strokes. so she was always a dreamer. the book opens with her talking about how she used to sit in a classroom and look at this big pulled down map on the wall and think about all the places was going to go. india and africa and asia and and was she was a voracious reader. she particularly devoured biographies in autobiographies that kind of ignited her imagination more, sparked her ambition. she. is not the first athlete.

this this happens a lot she's not the first athlete i've met who tells you that they convinced at a very early age they were touched by destiny, which is very funny i don't know if that's common with kids. and we don't hear about the ones that don't make it. but a lot of athletes say that and she was convinced that she tells a story about standing in the kitchen with her mother doing and telling her her mother when she was like seven, i'm going to do something great someday, mom. you just watch. you'll see. and little later, after she playing tennis, she got in car one day and told her mother, i just decided i'm going to be number in the world. and she always jokes that her mother said the best possible thing she have said to a kid in the fifties, a girl growing up the way she did. her mother just said, okay, dear dear man. and that was important. the world that billie jean was

starting to encounter was sending her different messages. a lot of people, when they think of billie the thing that they're most familiar with, is her part in the battle of the sexes match with bobby. in 1973. that she says and i've seen that there's not a day like by that someone doesn't tell her they saw it they watched it they affected by it they remember it. the thing that's funny, though, is a lot of people that was the flash point that sort of set her activism, activism in motion. but actually it had been smoldering in her since she was a kid. it was not like the fuze that lit things. it way before that when she was a kid, she was very excited to go to a minor league baseball

game and her parents had always told her, you could do anything, you can be whatever you want. she believed them. she was a good student. she was good athlete. she they went this game. she couldn't wait. she got there and when she looked down on the field, she realized that all the players were men and. a lot of girls report this moment in their adolescence where they there's a separation that happens and you realize that your life is going to be circ*mscribed because. you're a girl. and that's what happened to her that day. and she vividly not talking the whole way home in the car. she thought that she could live this life without limits and she had been told by her father, american dream, you know, is open to all of us and she thought that that was a disappointment. she at school, she she would encounter teachers who didn't

excuses for sports. she encouraged one teacher who sent a note home and said billy over uses her superior on the playground and they marked down a grade. she was livid about this after she started to play and went to a club to the first for the first time for a tournament her mother had made her these beautiful white shorts to wear because they had to wear white. and she was just about to pose for a group picture. and this guy named perry t jones, who ran the club and also ran tennis in southern california, came waddling of the stands. he was the kind of guy that somebody later kids would scatter like when they saw him coming, he was it's kind of like the margaret hamilton on the bike in the wizard of oz, you know, and perry came out and said, you little girl, you get out the picture. and she was more fight, you

know. and she said, why? and he said, have to have a skirt. and her mother was so appalled, went and bought more fabric and made her a skirt night using a teacup to, make the scallops. but, you know, the the damage sort of been done to billy. she also tells a poignant story about after she became really about how the the leading male players of the day would help the boy players that were at level the top local players dennis ralston. she would see pancho these famous players l.a. was a hotbed for tennis and pancho gonzalez would sit there talking to dennis and not know billie was alive. and she she was so intent on being good that she would sneak up and eavesdrop on them trying hear what he was saying.

she also had a started develop a sense of outrage about, other slights, the boys got comped at the snack bar and she and her mother have to bring these brown bag lunches and sit on a bench out the court and, eat their lunch and from the you know, from the very start, it didn't make any sense to her. she remembers thinking a lot about why women and girls were sort always told the pipe and blend in and rain in their ambition. be less capable, smart or accomplished than. they were. she didn't understand why a girls accomplished moments were seen as an irritant or a bad thing instead of a source of pride. she was very conscious during a career many times that she would

because she was so good so quickly that it was not really to beat a boy or a man. she she would. she would come off the court after beating these grown guys, the clubs that she practiced at. and somebody would say, who won? and she would say did. and the guys would thank her privately later when she was college in l.a state, she would regularly beat the top guy, the team and he got so mad one day he sent his racket pin whistling the the fence and she talks a lot about how social conditioning was really constraining for her. a lot of the time was something she fought and how even the night she was beating bobby riggs after all this kind of slurs and things he had done the

build up for the match. it flashed through her mind, if i beat him, this is going to be so embarrassing for him. and she had to kind of cram it back down and get back winning in straight sets. so the thing that i think billie thinks saved there is was lucky to have a lot of counterweights. and i think that informed her activism too, because it made her believe that you can even when things are stacked against you, make a difference and not accept things. you know, there's a lot of people have noted that people's willingness to try to change is affected. their belief in the capacity to affect change. you know, they get discouraged if they think it's to daunting and, you know, there was really

no reason should think that she could do the things she wanted to do except. she did. and so she. you know, today she's. she looks back and she thinks of how grateful she is for clyde walker. it she couldn't have afforded lessons but someone had told her that there was this guy in the public parks that gave a lesson every day at a different park. and she went and found him and then began following him to. every single party taught her every day and he look up and she should be coming in. and he would say again and she would say, yes why? you know, what are we doing today? and she was so determined, she talked him into her practice that girls were told boys could do certain serves certain kind

of things that were supposedly bad for their delicate constitutions or reproductive organs or backs or, you know, something was always something. and she would usually get it on the first try and clyde would say, good, and they'd keep going. so she was lucky to have clyde. she she also had an advocate for her and her father. and you. it's a lesson that women activists and, people in the sports arena of notice a long time that men tend to get engaged with women's rights in sports when they have a daughter and bill moffitt was just naturally that way he like mother he he told her she could be anything she wanted to be she played on the fireman's softball team with him and he would often get in fights. you know, he had a hot temper and she would have to pull off.

and people and. but she i think she gets sense of outrage and sort patients with injustice from him. so she had her father. she had she clyde, who? she asked clyde one day, clyde, can you make me a. and he said, no, billie jean. but with hard work you can. and it was the same her father had always given her, and she flung herself into getting better. she would up before school and do calisthenics she would run home at night, hit a ball against the fence. she knocked it down and then her dad. but built up a cinder block wall and up a spotlight for it so she could keep going after dark and. you know, she's sure the neighbors loved him for. that.

but what many people don't know about her is she she was also a very religious kid as a child when she was in about sixth or seventh grade, she there was a preacher at the church her family attended reverend richards, who was olympic athlete. he was a he was a gold medalist, pole vaulter. and he finished in the medals again at another olympics and he sort of animated dreams more. she she was convinced when she would go to these that he was talking directly to her. and he talked a lot about. the reach of sports and the potential sports to change the world, that it was a platform that people could use and by by this point, her father had told of all the sports that existed, tennis was something that a girl

could. long term. and so she would listen to bob richards talk about his experiences in olympic arena. he used to work out in the in the yard next to the the church. and he would she would see what it took the devotion and the intense do he preached sort of gospel self-reliance and self-examination, adjusting to things as you go in life. and these are all things she still talks about. and the other thing about the it was interesting about the church was this theological, theological of the church were mennonites and there was not this sort of conscription. you know, you have to to church five times a week do this or that. she said the ethos was you were judged by questions like, did

you live a life of service did you do good works? how did you approach world? were you tolerant or you kind? and that really appealed to her, you know, especially a girl was already running up against roadblocks and told that she wasn't really supposed to be doing the things that she was doing. and at one point she got so taken away with it, she asked to be baptized in front of the whole church, one of those big tanks that they put on the stage and after that, she read the bible night. she she. she used to lead sunday school classes would for many she carried a bible with her on the road when she traveled and she actually wanted to be a missionary she seriously about being a missionary and again and

again she would wonder she would ask herself but what would my calling be? she was always searching for what would her calling be. so you know, we how her life has turned out she's she's associated with fight for equal opportunity for women community but she's seen as a feminist icon but what a lot of people don't know is that her activism activism was actually animated at first by the civil rights movement. it was about the injustices she was nightly on tv. you know, by this point, as i said, she had been aware that jackie robinson broken the color lines in major league baseball because her family rooted for the dodgers. and she grew up in a diverse area in long beach. she didn't find out till she was older that the school that she

went to, those cerritos the parents had tried to get her neighborhood redlined out of the district because. it was literally on the other side of. the tracks. so that didn't happen. but she she was aware that the that there was there was this sort of world out there beyond what she knew and that she didn't have to accept these limits. and she identified with the people she saw on tv. she saw elizabeth eckford, one of the black students who integrated the little rock, arkansas school, walking into class with her books against her chest. and a perfect gingham dress and glasses. not that different from what wore and and these, you know, horrible images of these angry white people following her and menacing her and students

yelling at her and spitting at her and she she remembers watching ruby bridges in new orleans being into school by. federal marshals. and it troubled her so much she asked her parents that night, why would anybody stop kids from going to school. so she was she was at this point willing to work her work with clyde and as i said, you're earning two to be a world class. by the time she also got her first sight of althea, who was our first great african american tennis star, and this was at the 1957 pacific southwest tournament, the l.a. tennis club, where billie routinely practiced. billie was not quite 49 when this happened, but as she says she finally got to see what,

number one in the world looked like. and i realized, if you can see it, you can be it. and it's a word she uses a lot to this day. when she does work. i think the meaning the phrase to her is that there are there are just some in people in life that expand their idea of what's possible when we encounter them. and and it happens sometimes in ways that some of us can't always believe or do for ourselves. something gets unlocked and the bar gets again and again. and you see it all the time in sports. caitlin clark iowa right now is being called this revolutionary women's basketball player and there were others her candace parker moore. when i ordered cheryl miller and

simone biles has it in gymnastics, the olympic gymnast i way back the first time i covered the olympics, carl lewis was the american sprinting star and he ran at the seoul olympics and got blown away by ben johnson who chain saw it like someone of margin off the world record and carl's mind like sort of exploded a little because it wasn't supposed to be possible and everyone astrid one of his teammates who was 100 meters from women's champ talked later about going to carl and saying, look, you can do it, too. you know, but now you have to. and people rise to it. people do. so. so something more was definitely

unlocked. billie, the day she saw althea, it was kind of the last step in the progression of. her development. when althea autobiography came out a year later, billie read it like ten times and she slept with it at night, along with a racket. she, she read about althea as obstacles and wondered what lonely path did. althea have to take? what courage did it take for althea to get where she was and, you know, it was a poignant question for for a girl like billie, who was, as we said already experiencing these obstacles and slights herself. it's funny, because even the title of althea book was perfect and spoke to her it's called i always wanted to be somebody and billie still it and she'll pull it out now and then she's got this dog eared copy.

it's got a worn, threadbare cover. green and she'll read it. just look back. so that was when billie says believes she found her calling. she remembers looking. she was back at the same club. one day after seeing althea and being struck by how everything was white. she tells the story a lot. the crowds were white, the clothes were white, the shoes were white, the balls were white everything was white. and she said at that moment, she decided that tennis could be her platform for change and that she would spend her life fighting for equality for everyone and she told herself, if i could just become good enough, if i were ever to be number one, maybe people would listen. and, you know, it's a funny way it sounds inauthentic. doesn't sound like the way a kid

would talk. but when you think about it, it was basically the template she lifted straight from. reverend richards. and then, you know she put people's faces on it that she had encountered real life, people that she knew of her generation and her interests area area. and what also happened at that juncture was she realized the world that she wanted for women didn't exist. sort of like the same as althea. it didn't exist for her either. and it would be up to her generation to create it and. and think in the coming years, the heart of what's driven her ever since, you know, that nine thing, the she's never been able to reconcile even now is is just

really this simple. and she then now why would anyone put arbitrary limits on another human being? that's the question she asks herself. it's the question that pushes her and to me. it's the foundational piece of everything done and so that's sort of how she came embark on all that she's accomplished. it's it's a little tough. i talk to two groups because because of billy's age and the length of her career. there's different acquaintances with specifics of her accomplishments. so i'm not going to spend a lot of time on detailing it as much as listing it, because i'd like to get to some of the take the ways that she's sort of gleaned from all her years activism,

but. among the things that she's known for is probably other than beating bobby was the founding of the the women's tennis tour with it was called the virginia slims tour at the time. it's now called the women's tennis association, but with eight other women who broke away and a promoter named heldman, it's called called the original nine. and there's a an iconic photo of them holding up $1 bills. they had an existential threat. they weren't welcome men's tennis by the male promoters who refused to sign women. they were finding less and less places play the national were dictating where they needed to play when they tried to kind of evened out some of the prize money inequities which were 3 to 1 5 to 1 the last was jack

kramer, who had been an american champion, was going to hold a tournament in l.a., pay 65,000 to the men's field, 7500 to the women. so some of the women that if they traveled to the tournament, might lose money and they wouldn't a nickel unless they got to the quarterfinals. and so they finally had enough. and at the u.s. open, they tried to talk to kramer it was called the u.s. nationals at the time. they tried to talk to kramer, gladys heldman did. and kramer said if they don't it, i won't pay them anything. so that was the last straw they held their first tournament in houston. they were threatened with suspension. is it along around the fights where they had to deal with a lot of tropes and slurs and were kind of heartbroken that a lot of their male contemporaries were not on their side and were

just as bad with the. the opposition to them as is the press and promoters. arthur ashe said they want draw. we have families to support and we should get the money. yeah, marty reason said. women just clutter up, draw. stan smith said that the feminists women and and they won't listen to anybody they just want run everything and not good for them so there was a lot them to overcome and it took but billy being billy and you know always out front leading the charge. made this announcement that was going to try earn $100,000 in the first year of the tour, which was an extraordinary of money at the time. and she did it the last

tournament the year it was all calculated to get them attention. she did achieve it the last form of the year and it was brilliant because it had started this countdown. people were starting to pay attention. there was a snowballing interest and she ended up earning $117,000 that year, which was more than jerry west earned in the in the nba. it was more than bobby hull earned the boston bruins in the nhl. and it was more than all but five players in major league baseball. extraordinary. and she did it again the next year. and the velocity of change them after that was extraordinary within years. chris everett, who was really the first woman athlete, crossed pop star. came along in the television age. six years later, chris everett made 1 million in a year. so it was enormously successful.

at about the same time billy was fighting for title, which is not acquainted with it. it's the federal legislation that the said that said there couldn't be gender discrimination at funded institutions. people at first didn't realize that it applied to sports, but once it did it led to an explosion of interest. and billy was was at the forefront of that getting passed she successfully undertook the fight for equal prize at the us open and talks a lot about the strategy that that took and some of the lessons learned in doing that because again the opposition was fierce. the men were indignant. she had a meeting in the referees shed with billy talbot and he was tournament referee and she didn't make this moral

argument come on it's the right thing to do. it's it's yeah. she actually dropped a surprise him and she told him she had gotten a $50,000 sports ship from ban to make up the difference. and he said, don't. and they not to announce it to the next year and when did the men were mad and billy talbot was suddenly a convert spoke about the added value that the women had the monster demonstrably brought in and he said someone asked him what would you do? how do you about the men being angry? and he said, i would tell them to market their sport better, which you know, you know, billy is yes, you. to created world team tennis at the same time a kind of utopian view for men and women playing together contributing equally to

a team everything equal there was the format was men's women's mixed doubles doubles and and she's she's long felt that the two tours should be merged that everybody would be stronger if it was done that and not just at the major tournaments but throughout the years. so her idea for world team tennis was that it would help grow tennis, give people something to root for. you know, sports fans always talk about they for the laundry, not the people wearing the uniform. and she thought that would apply to tennis. it never really took off the way she wanted. and she has never let it. but i mean, it was a huge success for a while, but it's had many iterations. that's after the tennis boom and she also established in 1973 the first women's tennis union, the

men again when she approached them didn't want to include them in the atp union that they had built. so she started one at the gloucester hotel in london. she told betty stover, who was six foot and. seven languages to stand by the door and not let anyone out until said they could go. and she pushed through the vote. and they drew up contracts and on the spot she was pressing enough to do that. and they they it established when she got fed up with how sports and other media outlets refused cover women. she started women sport magazine. it's also in the seventies reasoning why would care about us if they don't know us? if if if they can't see us at the time women we're still fighting to get on the show courts not the back.

lots. she founded the women's sports. in 1974. that was partly to protect title nine and partly to keep track its enforcement, create for women in sports, billie has always. preaching that it's not just playing opportune cities because your careers are short. she wanted people to be in the front offices in management and and she wanted to create jobs for women in sports today we see women now breaking into the nfl all kinds places women are running a sports franchise as major sports franchises. as i said you most people will remember the the battle of the sexes match and it feels a little funny when people talk about it today because they they

can't understand why it was such a sensation people that are younger than who didn't live through those kind of times when when gender roles were so kind of circ*mscribed and when you tell them 90 million people tuned in worldwide or that 30 million were in the us or that 37,000 people hauled themselves to the that night to see a the number one player in the world play a 55 year old guy. they usually why you know but at the time it was and some things kind of amped up the the the import of it bobby had been hounding billie to to play the match for a couple of years and she just felt was nothing in it for her or the tour and so she refused so he he approached

margaret court who was the other prominent player at the time billy's career arrival and margaret said yes. what billy thought was a crummy pit pay the $15,000 and billy couldn't believe it. so saw she and margaret were never the best of friends because they were rivals. their politics different and she saw margaret in an elevator she said margaret, you have to win this match the of the tour depends on it have to win this match and margaret was like yeah yeah yeah. and went in prepare very much and riggs shocked everybody and beat her and it was known as the mother's day massacre. billy was in a airport and with rosie and they were running through the airport, hawaii, and they were on the way. i forget if it was to or from japan and was when they used to

have those little tvs on the airport and you could put a quarter in and they were running down the road putting quarters and trying to get the score. and then rosie got somebody transistor radio and they heard the score. billie said, now i have to play them. and that's the only reason it came off. and so as bad as the sort of discrimination had been early on, that match was really a crucible sort of stretch of her career. and she really genuinely believed if she didn't want that it was going to win, that it was going to set back the progress of the tour and. she trained like crazy. she isolated herself for the last week, she tells a lot about her preparations and her strategy all things that margaret you know, didn't think

she needed to do because she was so and she she was also adept at the mind games and bobby was sort of famous for being a con man and doing sort of stunts and people to bet and then taking their money and and, you know, she she had gotten used to the kind of things you were saying to kind of amp up the promotion. he would say things like i like women in the bedroom in the kitchen in that order or i'm going to kill her. they don't deserve to be paid anything. you know, men are supreme, are the kings and she would kind of blow it off. but the next last day at his workout, he showed up with a shirt, a t shirt on, and he had circles cut up or his -- and he made a crack to all the cameras about how he thought billie would look better it than him.

and that really got her mad because she said that crossed the line. and the next day they had a joint press conference. the last one before they met. and somebody asked her him and she said, i don't i respect him as a champion but i don't like how he runs women down. think he's a creep. and somebody asked bobby you know the big the big con and it was, you know, thought of himself as being able to psych somebody out, ask another question, the next question and he was so distracted, he looked at her, he said, you don't really mean that. do why don't you take that back, you know, saying, i'm a creep? and she says at that moment she looked him and she said she didn't know if it another one of his cons and she said, i didn't give a -- she said she looked at him and she said, you know

dismissively she looked at him and said, nope, baby stands. and she said she felt everything shift in the room the coverage so whatever she beat him in straight sets and there were stories it's so funny because there had been viewing parties people made bets it was the talk of the country people at college ran out into the green screaming won and and there was a huge reaction and this day people come up to her and tell, i didn't have the courage to ask for a raise until you did that. i didn't have i didn't think i could. i i had to be a man. the compete with a man in the workplace and people choked with emotion, with laughter. and so you changed my life to this day it's. 50 years so it's kind of extraordinary so.

that's going to leave it there. you can go on forever. things she's done i would to leave you guys with a sort of take some takeaways kind of a short list things that she says i hoping to give other people insights into what she's along the way. and one of the ones that always touches me is she'll tell people when in the business of change being prepared to the long game. she's a huge student of history and she says when you read about history it feels fast. but when you're living it, it moves very slow. progress is slow and it's usually incremental. sometimes we have what seem like overnight revolutions, but these represent sudden tipping points after a long period of struggle, she she she knows people get

discouraged not everybody is, you know, is driven as she is and she is people do understand that winning is a process and it's important to sort of stay in the moment not not get overwhelmed by the outcome fixated on the outcome in the moment for each battle that's happening, keep the end result and focus says be clear about your goals you decide for yourself what would define winning what would success look like to you? she says you often hear the cliche that life a marathon, but she sees it. she thinks life is a more a series a sprint you get to start over and over and nothing's really you know very few things are fatal fatal. you start over over and adapt to what's in front of you. she's she says her life is proof road to success is filled with obstacles the ebb and flow of victories and setbacks try to

never stop learning. because if you can come to see failure as feedback, the information will help you learn and plan your next step. she knows people think what difference i make. she reminds people technology. revolution. revolution. mechanized. the speed in, logistics of activism. a message can go viral even if you don't have. huge resources or, you know, marketing or to fight your battles. the idea can carry you. sometimes all you need is a cell phone. um, she uses twitter and instagram, as she calls them, daily conscience. this raising tools and she's really lately talked a lot about. she urges people to realize each of can be an influencer and. it doesn't matter if you're running for office or in the

spaces in a of your own home or, you know, a voting booth, she says when she sees people protesting, she sees and she thinks that it's important to think about all these things in a daily intentional way, um. she also says the two of the overarching lessons of her life is people's existences rarely improve by sitting still in the face of injustice. she had waited for somebody else to create the world that didn't exist yet, you know. when would it have happened? um, the other lesson is that the human spirit can't be caged, can't be underestimated, you know. and she she really believes that she's an example of this. that a spark of ambition.

and, um, can not only lift you personally can change the world. i know this all sounds earnest, but she did it, you know? i mean, can change the world, um. uh. a murmur rising one soul can be a raucous burst by many as the way she put it it. she talks about how it swept her in the company of people and places. you know, she never thought she'd be. and how it's put her in the company of a lot of other people or contrarians who don't accept the status quo especially when it renders them inferior or seems designed to erase them completely. and, you know, as i said, she thinks she says all the time, my life is proof of all that. unlike a lot of she's she likes

young she that. gen she they've done research with her billie jean king leadership initiative that shows millennials and gen x or two of the greatest generation for inclusion she said i know people complain about, but i think they're going to help solve problems and she talks about how they're not hung up on the things the sort of tribalism ism or identifiers that others generation has or have been, she says. she said they're not so hung up on people's and customs. they don't buy traditional boundaries. gender and race. they're deeply interested in collaboration and and connection. they've grown using social media and technology, and they're adept at building communities that way they think a lot, how they want to present themselves the world, which is a difference of how younger people use social media versus how older people do

people younger people. i talked to a librarian once ran the the programs at my local town and she was telling how younger people use social to curate their image. older people say what they did on their vacation. yeah. it's like, yeah. she says they're comfortable in the public space being even disruptors and they often have an entrepreneurial streak even if it manifests first. just building your own online, following. she talks a lot about intersect section ality, which is a term that all university people throw around. i hope about. you know that when people in the social justice world talk about intersectionality or visibility, is that basically they mean we're all part of one system.

you can't discuss equal or racism acknowledging the core causes that contribute to people being left behind. she, she she urges people that would like to activists too to think a lot about what dominant in the subcontinent groups work. she's encountered ceos that believe they are not against people until it's pointed out to them. they show them the data and. there's one guy she works with mark. i think the pronunciations of ben bennett of who's with salesforce, the founder of salesforce, and he says he has ceos call him all the time complaining. they're getting called out for, not treating equally same jobs, same those kind of things, promoting people, the whole thing and he says, i have to tell them no it's true. he says, we all have this at our

fingertips. but, you know, these people don't or won't accept it, that she urges women and minorities to fight people's tendencies to tell us when we lead or succeed? thanks for what you do. women or your rac that. she says no. she says we never limit male leaders by telling them thanks for what you do for men, double standard has to stop. any time women and minorities are discussing it as if we're only representing the faction, the population we come from that also consigns us to less of marketplace, less opportunities less money, less influence, and so on. we're never going to fulfill our potential until people realize when women are of color lead, we lead for everyone. when i fight equality, she says, i fight for everyone. and if i feel a guy, if i see a guy getting a role, do i'm going to fight to lift them.

she talks a lot about how this is a sort bridge, a of people have trouble to travel right after she beat riggs a lot of people would a lot of women would approach her to say they admired her activism and that introduced themselves as mrs. bennett mrs. jones and she would billie said she would look at them and say, that's great, but who are you. to challenge people to think. so we started to talk, talking about how a lot what she's fought so hard for, she and others, is sort of being relitigated and. when she looks at the, you know, the landscape now in the country, i think she feels. disturbed but not hopeless so.

she feels, like things have taken a turn. but she's convinced the point she always lands on. she's convinced that there's a kinder more, tolerant america out there because she's seen and her life proof of it. when she was outed. in 1981, nobody was publicly gay except james baldwin. some writers, some i mean, liberace kept doing interviews where he was saying he hoped to find out, you know, the right girl truly nobody was out. she lost $2 million overnight. she by that point, six knee surgeries and had to play a couple more years. she had a really clumsy damage control and talks. now, how who uses being of it as a as an opportunity to go further into the closet but

that's what i did she said it took her years to to able to reconcile it. she thought that that the tour would she would let everybody down and it took her. so she that matter how things dark are i think she feels like people do come around to their better angels she believes that. she likes to tell a story about how. when she looks at all these movements that today black lives matter is marriage equality. time's up the the continuation of work that people been doing forever and she said it was, but it wasn't until things like the george floyd murder and when she saw people even in majority

white communities lying on the street for the length time that he had been unable to breathe, she said it, it was for, she said. for the first time in my life, i thought, we're getting close to unlocking how to make equality happen. happen of the coalition of people that were protesting was different than she had ever seen. and she said the reason that's important is effort has to be inclusive. it has to be achieved together. otherwise it won't work, she said. one of the reasons she doesn't demonize people, she's of a consensus builder and goes to sort of nuclear options as a last resort is, she says. it's very smart. she says it's not necessarily that she doesn't dislike him. it's because a lot these people that you're fighting with are the people that going to make your dreams come true. so. you know, when you think back to what i said about billie and that fundamental, fundamental

question about why would anybody put arbitrary limits on a human being, it's really about seeing people. with respect and dignity. and one of the things she loves to tell a story about her wife is from south africa. the zulu tribe there has a term that billie thinks beautifully express expresses a similar thought to what talking about is. the word is solid, but it's a greeting that literally means i see you and you know more than the word is sort of a container for other feelings. it carries the importance, recognizing the worth and dignity of each person. it says, i see the whole of you. you your your passion. it's your pain, your weaknesses and strengths. and you are valuable to me. it's just that simple

acknowledgment and it's ideas like that that keep her going. as she's gotten older, she says she likes to challenge people to ask themselves to, think about when they're old and gray like her, to do a reckoning what have they done with the life? their life and the last thing i'll leave you with is she says she thinks it's important to think about that in a daily intention all the way. thank you. okay. now, i want you to finish this before there is more here.

i what is her net worth and who's going to get it? she's very funny because she says she just wants to make money. so she can give it away. and so i see various estimates. i know, but i've seen estimates like it's not much. 10 to 12 million, maybe. that's not including property shows owns this place in manhattan she owns a place in chicago. one of the things that's going to set the resonated with me is the pressure is a privilege and i've always remember her for that. but the question i have is that martina has come out very, very strongly against biological males competing against women.

yeah, i haven't seen anything on billie jean on that particular issue as you where. yeah, she but i and you know she's worked very hard. she has people she consults with some ethics, you know, sports one is at yale does work for the u.n. she's talked to a lot people about it. and she sort of feels conflicted because she's always fought for opportunity. and there are it's not as simple as a biological male who is, you know, a trans woman has a physical advantage. if you require, for example, that they out themselves, it may not be safe where they're from. they could get killed in russia or someplace so. i think what she feels is that

it's going to be really hard to get one size fits all policy because of the differences, sports, you know, and gymnast. because if you put a guy in gymnastics, they wouldn't be able to women's gymnastics on that apparatus they wouldn't be able to do the same routines women can because of their body structure. but if you take a six, five swimmer with arms and levers that long knifing through the water changes things. the heart capacity of men, biological men is different. so i think she's evolved more toward thinking there should be restrictions, but she's a big consensus builder and she never feels pressured to kind of give an opinion until she confident and. but martin has been has been sort of frustrated with billie of that i mean billie was a really the most vocal supporter in the beginning of rene richards when rene was banned

from this was back in seventies. she was a transsexual woman and 63 sighs, 11 shoes. she's hysterical. she still plays golf with buddies and they make her play from the men's tees. you know, she jokes about it. but rene billie sought out rene back at the time and talked to her about it and learned all about hormones, oppression and all those things. and rene was 41 when she came along and not the threat she was. but rene has changed her stance on it now says if she had been 23 and the former yale tennis captain and you five time u.s. open qualifier playing against women she didn't she just you know we're out of them so i think she's it's really hard for her to to decide we deal with in book but kind of elliptically yeah have question over here my

ms. cane grew up around firefighters and police men as the one woman seeking and she did abuse it all and no no no i'm you know a lot of women in sports have. lot of them say this all the time, that men and boys tend to accept you more when you're good at something they value and. she was always one of the best athletes around people kind of accepted her for that she's never heard her talk about any of that kind of treatment. it was more, you know, heartbreaking to her that it came from her contemporary from malcolm temporaries in tennis or the the establishment in her sport. okay question yeah.

can you tell me why the you know. yeah. or does moffitt and he has shipped out not long after her mother found out she was pregnant, shipped out to the navy for world war two and they weren't sure he was going to come back. so when billy was, they named her billy? that's her real name? yeah. billie jean. so you want to started? i think so. i guess. here, have had a hit here. hello. hi. was billy his for the next movie? and it she died. she was console added. she she, she was very with everything they did especially. i'm emma stone. some work to kind of master tennis i think i think if you

gave a truth serum serum it took her a bit to make that journey from realizing it's not a documentary, it's an entertainment vehicle. and so a lot of the details were sort of fudged or, kind of created out of whole cloth so there are certain in that movie like, you know, a lot of movies, even biopics that are just blatantly not true, but she she was happy that it was made because she thought it was allowing message to reach a whole new generation of people. to easy with what they were, which is a very thing in hollywood her marriage was she was born on november 22nd. and it's kind of heartbreaking to her because when she was in college, you know that was the day kennedy was shot and killed.

she was married technically. she married. they just didn't get a divorce. she was married. i got to think. how many years it was. i want to say this is a little while since i thought about it. i have to do the math. i. think 1487. i got to go backwards. 60 87 might be 70, 17 years, but they were living separate lives as, husband and wife. by the time she played riggs. um, but the irony was they still really each other and were, it was of the more successful they got, the more enmeshed they became in business and she was honest with him about how her feelings changed and he had started see other people and it was even reported in sports

illustrated. grace lichtenstein, who followed the women's tour the first year, asked them, why are you still married? in the book? and they said, we just never got around to yeah, you did. you always would have to go back. to bookstores to back know. i don't to take the women's history to elizabeth taylor. well now she she said our generation and i think they were terrific to reflect welcome back excuse me for actually elizabeth taylor thank you very much.

are most esteemed moderator mark thompson his face faithfully been on standby for two years for our festival through the cancellations in this darn pandemic. as i said at the opening of the show today, it's been both terrifying and

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