Politics in Sports

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Bluebook 21st ed. Susan Ware. Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports (2011).

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Chicago 7th ed. Ware Susan. Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports. , .

McGill Guide 9th ed. Susan Ware, Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King & the Revolution in Women's Sports (: ., 2011)

AGLC 4th ed. Susan Ware, Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports (., 2011)

MLA 8th ed. Ware, Susan. Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports. , . HeinOnline.

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Chap ter Th

ree B illie J

ean K ing, In

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w o m e n S p o rt s

, t h e W o m e n ’

s S p o r t s

F o u n d at i o n

, a n d W o r l d T

e a m T e n n i s

Billie Jean King was already approaching thirty when she beat Bobby Riggs in the Batle of the Sexes in 1973, and she must have known that her playing days would soon be drawing to a close. Her irst retirement — ater winning Wimbledon in 1975 — didn’t stick, but she was already devoting increasing time to a variety of business and charitable undertakings while cuting back on her tennis schedule. “I still feel that playing my best on a given day, I can win every match — provided I can concentrate totally on my tennis,” she said in early 1976. “As my life now stands, I will devote four months a year totally to tennis with the New York Sets in World Team Tennis com- petition. he balance of the year will be illed with business commitments, women Sports, television commentary with ABC and time of.” Relecting on her options, she said, “It’s really great that the sport has produced enough to allow me . . . this choice. I wish this was true for everyone.”1 Billie Jean King was always clear on the importance of women being able to make a living as athletes: ater all, this was the whole thrust behind the es-

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tablishment of the women’s professional tennis tour in the early 1970s. King fervently believed that women’s professional opportunities should not be limited to tennis: “Litle boys have so many opportunities. hey can picture themselves being a baseball player, basketball player, hockey — wherever professional opportunities are open to boys, that’s what they can dream about in a realistic way.” Her childhood memories were far less expansive: “When I was a litle kid, I had to follow Mickey Mantle’s bating average. I never had any woman to emulate in politics or anything.” She wanted litle girls to dare to dream on equal- opportunity terms and proudly ofered her career as a model and inspiration.2 his is where Billie Jean King’s story and that of Title IX converge. In her own career she was working toward the same general goal as the legis- lation: challenging and eradicating all forms of discrimination in athletics so women could inally have a sporting chance to play on equal terms with men. To accomplish this goal took education, advocacy, political engage- ment, and even entrepreneurship. Just as she had done in the Batle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King dovetailed her personal and professional priorities with building support for women’s sports in the society at large. Not co- incidentally, many of her actions also beneited Billie Jean King personally, either inancially or in terms of enhancing the public visibility and celebrity she craved. To her mind, this was a win- win situation: she got to pursue a lucrative career while also acting as a role model for women athletes every- where. Not surprisingly, her unbridled ambition and drive also opened her to criticism that she was mainly out for herself. Ater her victory in the much- hyped Batle of the Sexes, Billie Jean King suddenly found herself lush with cash. Even though the money available in the 1970s seems like peanuts compared to today’s multimillion- dollar tournament purses and lucrative endorsement contracts, its scale was un- precedented at the time, especially for a female athlete. he Wall Street Journal estimated that King grossed $500,000 in 1973 from her tournament winnings, the residuals from the Bobby Riggs match, as well as a string of endorsements that included Adidas, Wilson tennis rackets, Colgate tooth- paste, Aquanet hairspray, Phase III soap, Bonnie Doon socks, and Sunbeam hair curlers. he following year her income approached $1 million. Billie Jean King’s “open pursuit of money and fame” appalled many in the ten- nis establishment and subjected her to inevitable criticism and resentment, which she simply shrugged of as sour grapes: “hey love you when you’re coming up. But they don’t like winners. And they especially don’t like me

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because I talk about money all the time.” She concluded triumphantly, “I’m mercenary. I’m a rebel.”3 Her coconspirator in these mercenary rebellions — what could easily be called “Billie Jean King, Inc.” — was her lawyer husband, Larry, or as he un- apologetically signed autographs “Mr. Billie Jean King.” As he said in 1980, “You’ve got to make a choice when your wife is involved in sports. You can not be involved at all, you can be a nay- sayer or you can come up with solu- tions. As it happens, Billie Jean’s forte is identifying the problem and mine is identifying the solution.” Just as ambitious and focused when it came to business as she was in tennis, Larry King functioned as a tennis promoter (“I’ve probably promoted more women’s tennis tournaments than anyone in the world”), lawyer for the Women’s Tennis Association, entrepreneur (with a chain of tennis camps called TennisAmerica and as copublisher of women Sports), and real estate developer.4 As Frank Deford deadpanned in a Sports Illustrated proile in 1975: “he lasting vision of Larry is of him stand- ing in a World Team Tennis ticket booth, trying to sell lifetime subscrip- tions to women Sports, as a friend walks by and calls out to him: ‘How’s the condos going, Larry?’ ” Like his superstar wife, he rubbed many people the wrong way and oten seemed oblivious to his tendency to conlate what was good for tennis with what was good for Billie Jean King, Inc. But he was enormously useful to his wife’s career, and she could never have accom- plished so much, on and of the court, without him as her trusted partner and inancial advisor.5 In the years immediately ater the Bobby Riggs match, Billie Jean King used her newly won clout and inancial success to embark on new ventures, both business and nonproit. Dennis Van der Meer, who partnered with the Kings in TennisAmerica, observed her unusual priorities: “Most ath- letes want annuities and pension plans, but Billie Jean is sticking her neck out and puting her earnings back into the tennis industry.” In addition to exploring alternative streams of income, she was also interested in linking her name with ventures that could help her to maintain her public celebrity and her undisputed role as the best- known female athlete of her time.6 One of her earliest projects was founding a sports magazine for women called women Sports, which debuted in June 1974. hat same year saw the beginnings of the Women’s Sports Foundation, an advocacy group dedi- cated to expanding and protecting athletic opportunities for women and girls. he year 1974 also marked the debut of World Team Tennis (W TT), a new venture designed to break out tennis from its country- club seting

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and make it into a popular team sport on a par with baseball, football, or basketball. Billie Jean King didn’t stop with tennis. In the 1970s she actively promoted the establishment of a women’s professional sotball league and cheered the eforts to set up or expand professional leagues for women in sports such as basketball and golf.7 With these ventures, Billie Jean King was thinking not only about her professional future but about how to maintain the momentum of the women’s sports revolution until her goal — and that of Title IX as well — of equal access for all men and women was reached. She joked she could already hear the sportswriters saying, “Here comes Billie Jean on another crusade — doesn’t she ever get tired?” Even though her grandiose visions might be met with skepticism, so many of her dreams for tennis had al- ready come true that she forged ahead with equanimity. As she said in 1975, “No one believes in World Team Tennis. Nobody believes in women Sports. Everybody looks at you like you’re crazy and you say, ‘Am I crazy?’. . . Most people don’t believe anything until ater the fact.” Even if her role in most of these ventures was more the visionary founder and celebrity cheerleader than a hands- on participant or administrator, Billie Jean King found the decade of the 1970s a fertile climate for her experiments in sports entrepre- neurship and self- promotion.8

About nine months before the Batle of the Sexes, Billie Jean and Larry were driving across the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco when she began complaining about Sports Illustrated’s lack of coverage of women athletes. Ater listening to her rants, Larry calmly suggested that she do something about it by starting a magazine of her own. hus the idea for women Sports was hatched. Billie Jean King later put its founding in more personal, if somewhat self- centered, terms: “he thousands of hours I’ve spent practicing these last 19 years and the thousands of miles I’ve run on the courts have brought me to a secure position inancially. Sure, I’ve got a sports car, a house on the beach, all the material things I could want. I’ve even achieved almost all the goals I set out for myself insofar as tennis is concerned. But for some time now, there has been a gnawing, nagging feel- ing that there was yet one more thing I had to do.” By the time the magazine debuted in the summer of 1974, she was positively giddy with anticipation: “I’ve never had so much fun in my life.” She was all of thirty years old.9 Starting any kind of magazine is a risky proposition: according to the New York Times in 1974, two out of ive new magazines started that year

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were likely to fail. Bankrolling such a magazine would entail a substantial inancial risk for the Kings, one that their investment advisors warned against. Beter try real estate instead, they suggested, reminding them that Sports Illustrated, the premier success story in the world of sports journal- ism, did not even turn a proit until ten years ater it was founded in 1954. In addition, neither of the Kings had the least experience in publishing, or as Billie Jean later admited, “we didn’t know a by- line from a center spread.”10 Tennis associate Jerry Diamond captured the combination of idealism and impetuosity behind the idea well, calling it “a wonderful concept — a wom- en’s Sports Illustrated — but about ten years before its time. When it came out, women’s sports were just emerging. Rather than say, ‘hey, let’s wait a few years, let this run its course,’ nope, they just went ahead and did it.”11 Billie Jean King was not the irst — or the last — to think there ought to be a magazine devoted to women’s sports. In March 1973 twenty- six- year- old Marlene Jensen started the Sportswoman, with none other than Billie Jean King on the irst cover. he magazine was originally planned as a quar- terly, but the response was so strong that it immediately moved to six is- sues a year. Available by subscription only, its circulation was only 5,000, but Jensen saw great potential for growth. But when she approached fellow Californians Billie Jean and Larry King for inancial backing, they told her they planned to “do it bigger and beter” and turned her down.12 By the time of the Riggs match in September 1973, word was out on the street that Billie Jean King was planning to publish a sports magazine for women. he Wall Street Journal referred to the forthcoming magazine as “Ms. Sports,” although that is the only public reference to such a title.13 Even without the shared title, the inluence of Ms. magazine on this venture is clear and omnipresent. When Billie Jean and Larry were in the planning stages, their most inluential mentors were Pat Carbine of Ms., John Mark Carter of American Home, and Ellen Merlo, a former managing editor of Motor Trend who was now with Phillip Morris.14 Ms. debuted as an insert in a late December 1971 issue of New York Mag­ azine; its irst stand- alone issue followed quickly in January 1972, dated Spring 1972 in case it had to sit on newsstands for months. Instead it sold out in eight days. he magazine quickly became the popular embodiment of second- wave feminism, with a circulation of between 400,000 and 500,000 and readership near 3 million. Like all new ventures, Ms. struggled inancially, but it managed to forge an incredibly strong link to its readers and subscribers. It wasn’t just that Ms. illed a niche: it aimed to be part

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of the revolution in women’s lives symbolized by the revival of feminism. Women Sports aimed to ill a similar role for those who were passionate about sports.15 Whether women Sports was modeled on Ms., Sports Illustrated, the Sports­ woman, or something else, Billie Jean King had a clear vision of why her magazine was necessary. As she told the Wall Street Journal at the time of the Riggs match, “No one knows woman athletes as personalities. Women athletes need a vehicle to communicate with others as well as with them- selves.” In her debut publisher’s leter in the June 1974 issue, she articulated her vision more fully: “I am proud to be a woman athlete. My hope is that through women Sports, many more women will take pride in their perfor- mance in sports and take pride in the enjoyment a well- toned body can bring them. If athletics is beneicial for men, which I believe it is, if sports competition builds character in men through discipline, which I also be- lieve, then athletics must hold the same beneits for women.” Seting her sights high, she aspired to make women Sports “not only a service to other women, but a magazine of which all women can be proud.”16 Billie Jean King was listed on the masthead as publisher, but other than her monthly publisher’s leter (which copublisher Larry oten drated), the editorial content was under the control of Rosalie Wright.17 hat boundary failed, especially at irst, to keep women Sports from seeming like all Billie Jean King, all the time. he irst issue was especially embarrassing, even to the tennis star herself. King was mentioned forty times in a ninety- six- page magazine and appeared in six of the twenty advertisements, plus graced the cover, which had the consequence of making the magazine seem like a promotional vehicle for the tennis star. A creative — and peeved — reader from Harrison, New Jersey, sent in a collage containing every one of those mentions. Somewhat sheepishly, the editors replied: “WomenSports is not intended to be a showcase for Billie Jean King, but since at this point, there are few equally famous women athletes, Billie Jean is naturally the advertis- ers’ choice. By exposing the public to other great female athletes, we hope to rectify the situation, resulting in future commercial endorsements by other women sports stars.”18 In some ways, however, the pendulum swung too far the other direction: the editors adopted an unoicial policy of minimizing coverage of the ten- nis star, which had the consequence of making it seem like she did nothing in the wider world of sports except write monthly publishers’ leters. he editors inally relented when they realized that “covering women’s sports

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without covering Billie Jean has seemed like trying to cover national poli- tics without mentioning the President.” In May 1977 she was back on the cover with a featured story called “he Bodacious Billie Jean King” about her decision to compete at Wimbledon ater prematurely retiring from competition the year before. In this case, it seemed only fair that her maga- zine would get the scoop.19 he demographics of women Sports’ readers contained few surprises. Results from a readers’ survey that appeared in the December 1974 issue conirmed that 98 percent of readers were women, three- quarters of whom were between the ages of eighteen and thirty- four. Fity- ive percent were college graduates; 65 percent lived in their own residence; and 60 percent worked as teachers or other professionals. Conirming a patern seen at Ms., readers devoured the magazine from cover to cover, typically spend- ing between one and two hours reading its various articles and features. Presumably these well- read copies were then passed along to friends, in- creasing the readership.20 In October 1974 the editors reported distributing 300,000 copies to newsstands, but this proved a fairly inefective way of reaching new readers, who consistently reported great diiculty inding the magazine for sale. Competing for shelf space and atention on newsstands against more well- established competitors was just one of the challenges faced by this ledgling enterprise.21 What was it like to read women Sports in its early days? he magazine of- fered its subscribers and readers who managed to ind it on newsstands a glossy, upbeat selection of articles and features devoted to women in sports that in many ways was not all that diferent from a traditional women’s mag- azine such as McCall’s or Redbook: “a glossy cover photograph, an ad on the back cover, a rhetorical style that emphasized a personal tone, and a table of contents with titles of self- help articles.” Except that in this case the self- help was about sports. Because the magazine had a three- month lead time, the content emphasized proiles and features rather than coverage of ac- tual sporting events, meaning that women Sports could never compete with a weekly such as Sports Illustrated, which combined its trademark longer proiles with stories about what had happened in the world of sports the week before.22 Since traditional media outlets such as newspapers and Sports Illus­ trated rarely gave the topic of women’s sports more than a passing men- tion, sports- minded readers welcomed an entire magazine devoted to this one topic. But it was not simply a women’s magazine, mainly because of

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its clearly articulated political stance on women’s sports. For example, the very irst issue in June 1974 featured extensive coverage of Title IX. Call- ing the law “37 words that will change the world,” Ellen Weber noted that “HEW is about to do for women’s athletics what the 19th amendment did for women’s rights.” In addition to regular features on Title IX, the magazine alerted readers to the need to support funding for the Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA), covered the ongoing struggle between the AIAW and the NCAA over control of women’s athletics, and provided trenchant criti- cism of American amateur sports opportunities as well as speciic critiques of the United States Olympic Commitee, the main governing board.23 However, with the exception of two features during the bicentennial year of 1976 — an insert on the Equal Rights Amendment in concert with other women’s magazines in July and a guide to the 1976 election in November — the only “politics” was the kind that had a speciic link to sports.24 In this respect there is a clear diference from the wide range of issues found in Ms., which was irst and foremost a feminist magazine. Interest- ingly, even before women Sports debuted, the coverage devoted to sports in Ms. was already on the upswing. he irst Ms. sports article, “See Jane Run,” which chronicled the obstacles facing Olympic runners, ran in January 1973; the irst sports cover was July of that year, featuring — no surprise — Billie Jean King. When Ms. covered sports, it tended to focus on questions of equity foremost: access, bias, prize money, and the like. It ran early articles on the sexual harassment of female athletes by male coaches and “how to” articles about challenging your local litle league or school department to provide beter access to sports resources for girls. It also covered Title IX and the batle between the AIAW and the NCAA. According to one reck- oning, the sports coverage in Ms. increased 320 percent between 1972 and 1977, comprising 2.5 percent of total editorial space. he consistent inclu- sion of such articles conirms that sports, athletics, and Title IX were dei- nitely on the agenda of second- wave feminism in the 1970s, even if never a top priority.25 While the mere fact of publishing a magazine devoted to women’s sports in the 1970s comprised a feminist statement, the format of women Sports and the presentation of its features were more traditional, by design and intent. Again, a comparison to Ms. is instructive. he Ms. cover story on Billie Jean King that ran in 1973, aggressively titled “Billie Jean Evens the Score” and writen by sportswriter Bud Collins, very much portrayed her through the lens of feminist politics by focusing on questions of equal rights and prize

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money and her conlicts with the USLTA as part of the general radicaliza- tion of King herself and professional tennis in general. When women Sports featured Billie Jean in its irst issue a year later, the article had a far less femi- nist thrust. Titled “How To Win,” it talked mainly about her training regime and her motivation for winning. “Maybe the reason I love to win is because it hurts so much when I lose. And I can’t stand the pain.” How do you get to be a winner? “To be a winner you must have total self- awareness. You’ve got to be aware of how much training your body needs, how much practice you need, and how much time you need to prepare yourself mentally.” he contrasting tone of those two Billie Jean King proiles captures the difer- ence between a feminist magazine and a more traditional magazine devoted to women’s sports to a tee.26 Because it was not providing coverage of actual events, women Sports tended to focus on a variety of sports, using its pages to introduce top ath- letes and teams to fans and participants alike. Tennis obviously received a lot of coverage because of the link to Billie Jean King, but over the irst few years practically all major sports played by women in the United States, in- cluding sotball, suring, running, volleyball, soccer, basketball, ield hockey, and skiing, received prominent features that focused either on the sport or on a leading athlete associated with it. (Of course the problem for a maga- zine like this is what to do when it has proiled all the major sports. Editors have to start over again and think of new ways to write the same article for both new and recurring readers.) No doubt inluenced by Billie Jean King’s own priorities, the magazine gave special atention to the atempts to set up women’s professional leagues.27 Like any other magazine, women Sports also had regular features that readers could look forward to in every issue. “Foremothers” ofered proiles of pioneering women athletes from history, including golfer Glenna Col- lete Vare, tennis player Hazel Wightman, and swimmer Gertrude Ederle.28 Starting in October 1975, the magazine ofered a guide to which schools ofered athletic scholarships to women, a clear outgrowth of Title IX that permanently changed the practice of reserving such scholarships only for men. By 1977 this yearly feature had grown so large that it was sponsored by Hanes Hosiery, maker of L’Eggs pantyhose. Said Billie Jean King, tongue in cheek: “We appreciate their energy on behalf of women’s sports — and it’s been sheer pleasure working with them,” a reference to one of their most popular products.29 Probably inluenced by Sports Illustrated and also by Billie Jean King’s

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grudge that she had to share her Sportswoman of the Year award with Sportsman John Wooden in 1972, the magazine in 1975 decided to select its own “womanSport of the Year.” Totally surprising the editors, the athlete who got the most votes was not a superstar such as Chris Evert or Olga Korbut but Linda Jeferson, the star halback on the Toledo Troopers pro football team. Jeferson won as a result of a concerted get- out- of- the- vote campaign by her fellow players and their loyal following among Toledans, including the mayor and the entire city council.30 he editors professed to be ine with this outcome, but the next year they changed the rules so that readers had to vote from a slate of candidates, which produced more tradi- tional choices — Chris Evert in 1976 and igure skater Dorothy Hamill in 1977. Following their editorial policy, Billie Jean King was deemed ineligible for the award.31 One of the most prominent features each month was leters from read- ers: the magazine always devoted at least two pages to their comments, sometimes more. Once again, Ms. magazine blazed the trail: its July 1973 issue published ive pages of leters, far more than the skimpy oferings in traditional women’s magazines such as McCall’s or Good Housekeeping. Like Ms., women Sports editors invited its readers to think of it as “their” maga- zine. “More than anything else,” Billie Jean King told readers in its second issue, “I want women Sports to be a vehicle for all women to use in communi- cating the joys and frustrations of being involved in sports. In order to make this your magazine, you have to help. Please write us and let us know what’s on your mind. Let us know what you did or did not like in each issue.”32 In response, readers wrote back with ringing endorsements and testimo- nials of how excited they were to inally have a magazine that took women’s sports seriously. Readers repeatedly shared their own versions of the “click” moment so prominent in second- wave feminism when they encountered — and oten surmounted — sexism or prejudice standing in the way of the full enjoyment of their athletic potential. And they poked fun at the traditional male world of sports coverage: one reader reported that since women Sports debuted, she had been using Sports Illustrated to line her kity- liter box. But when the magazine failed to live up to readers’ notions of what a magazine on women’s sports should be, they wrote back in tones ranging from disap- pointment to outrage at the lapses.33 hese critical leters ofer an interesting window on how the magazine was being received and on some of the underlying tensions of trying to publish a commercially successful, advertising- based, feminist- themed

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popular magazine devoted to women’s sports. Why was jockey Mary Bacon pictured from behind wearing a pair of polka- dot bikini underpants that showed through her racing jodhpurs? “Now this is exactly the kind of sex- ist shit that I’ve always objected to in the likes of Sports Illustrated,” wrote a reader from New Hampshire. “Why does she have to be pictured as a piece of ass on your contents page? Please try to get away from this approach.” Two readers criticized a picture of surfer Laura Ching showing what the editors had captioned “winning form” — a picture in which she is shown simply standing in a bathing suit. “We realize that you, too, are subjected to social conditioning which condones women as sexual objects,” they chas- tised the editors, “but we would hope that a magazine such as yours — sup- posedly dedicated to women’s athletic achievements — would not stoop to such standards.”34 Readers were also critical of the advertisements, even though these ads made the magazine possible. “he Speedo ad in your March issue was disgusting,” wrote a reader from Summit, New Jersey. “As women, we are again being told that the physical characteristics of our bodies are the main assets in ‘competing’ for men. he ad is also demeaning to the intel- ligence of men. . . . Hopefully, as more and more advertising agencies ind it unproitable to use people to sell a product, we will be free of the trash in advertising. Until then, I’ll remember the brand name Speedo and not buy its products.” Editors regularly shared such leters with the advertising companies, reasoning that they would welcome the feedback. he Speedo company, for example, changed the ad that many readers had found sexist and ofensive.35 Criticism of women Sports’ decision to accept cigarete advertising as in- congruous in a magazine devoted to women’s sports and health was there from the very beginning, with predictable results: Billie Jean King was just as unapologetic about accepting the support of cigarete manufacturers as she was about Virginia Slims’ role in bankrolling women’s professional tennis. In response to readers questioning the policy of accepting beer and cigarete ads, King countered: “We cannot in good conscience refuse adver- tising space to these categories. First a new magazine is a very touchy busi- ness and survival economically does not allow the luxury of doing without advertising. Secondly, the cigarete and liquor industries have supported sports from the beginning and I, as a professional athlete, would be a hypo- crite to accept their help in sports events and turn it down in women Sports.” hen she added her usual mantra about not smoking herself but believing

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that each individual had the freedom to decide whether to support speciic advertisers. As usual with Billie Jean King, the ends justiied the means.36 In women Sports’ defense, it should be noted that Ms. accepted advertis- ing for cigaretes and alcohol throughout the decade of the 1970s, seeing this as a mater of individual choice as well as a business necessity. Where they drew the line was when the editors considered the advertising sexist or demeaning to women, such as the “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” campaign of Virginia Slims that was the backbone of women’s professional tennis. (hey suggested a diferent slogan: “You’ll Go a Long Way.”) hat decision cost them dearly, according to editor Pat Carbine. Needless to say, a similar decision would never have been made at women Sports on Billie Jean King’s watch.37 In addition to complaints about lack of coverage of speciic sports such as bowling or too much coverage of tennis and running, as well as gripes about male writers being assigned to stories instead of women, a consis- tent theme from readers was the lack of atention to lesbians in sports. (Ms. was also criticized for this but had a beter track record.) Readers pointedly wrote in to challenge the heterosexual bias of many stories, such as athlete proiles that gave a large amount of space to husbands and boyfriends or quotes from the athletes themselves that denigrated lesbian athletes. For example, jockey Mary Bacon was quoted as saying, “What woman reads about other women unless she’s queer?” Even if that was an individual opin- ion, readers demanded, why not counter it elsewhere in the magazine with positive portrayals of lesbians in sport?38 Another reader wrote in criticizing the tone of the magazine as bending over backwards so that readers wouldn’t get the “wrong idea” about women athletes, which negated the fact that there were indeed lesbians in sport. “To be a woman in sports is hard enough. To be a lesbian in sports is even harder. But to be denied or ignored by other women athletes and women­ Sports is the hardest of all.” hose exchanges then led another reader to fear that running these leters was merely a tactic to avoid dealing with the issue, which provoked this wishy- washy response from the editors: “WomenSports takes a humanistic atitude toward the gay movement — that is to say, one’s sexual preference is one’s own business. We have yet to be convinced that sexual preference has any direct relationship to athletic performance.”39 Another undercurrent in readers’ leters was the relation of the maga- zine to second- wave feminism. Obviously its timing and inspiration in the irst place linked women’s sports with the revival of feminism in the 1970s,

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but not everyone, including the editorial staf, agreed on how feminist the undertaking should be. Readers ran the gamut. One reader got so sick of athletes distancing themselves from feminism that she wanted to tell them all, “If you have ever become angry because of discrimination toward your- self because you are female — angry enough to complain, to write a leter or to do anything — then honey, you are a women’s libber.” Another reader took race car driver Stevi Cederstrom to task for saying she’d been racing long before “women’s libbers” knew how to spell liberation: “Any serious female athlete has a grueling uphill struggle, and she’s either going to be a feminist or she’s going to be a loser. I hope Ms. Cederstrom drives with her eyes open, because I think she must keep them closed a great deal of the time.” And yet for every leter complaining that the magazine wasn’t femi- nist enough, there was another that, in the words of one reader, worried about its “overall atitude and tone of a kind of toughness or crassness that has to alienate many readers.”40 In general, the magazine seemed more concerned with striking the right balance between the hard- core athlete and the woman who was interested in sports for health and itness than with taking a stand for feminism. Evi- dence from the magazine content as well as the frequent staf and publish- ing changes that roiled its early years suggest a clear trend away from its original feminist orientation, the result of a combination of inancial, mar- ket, and editorial factors. At irst the magazine aggressively used proiles of leading athletes and overviews of emerging sports and legislation to pro- mote an agenda of equal rights and plans for action. “How to Pick up Men and hrow hem against the Wall” was the title of an article on self- defense in August 1974. hat summer the magazine advertised a t- shirt with the slo- gan “women Sports has balls.” As editor Rosalie Wright said, “We showed women how to make waves.” And yet what seemed like laming feminism in the sports world registered as tame — or worse — to hard- core feminists such as Jan Cunningham, coordinator of the Task Force on Sports for the National Organization for Women. his was item number four on her list of things to do in 1975: “hink a litle bit about women Sports. Write leters of complaint about their sexist articles.”41 By the summer of 1975 the magazine faced real problems: undercapital- ization, staf cuts, low circulation, and a demographic not broad enough to atract advertisers. As also happened at Ms., there were heated conlicts be- tween the advertising staf, who wanted enough ads to keep the magazine aloat, and those on the editorial side, who were critical of support from

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companies such as Virginia Slims and who were not keen on Maybelline or Clairol’s atempt to use sports to promote their commercialized versions of beauty. One casualty was editor Rosalie Wright, who was ired that sum- mer.42 At the last staf meeting before Wright was let go, one disgruntled staf member said, “Billie Jean got up and gave a pep talk about match point and how we were all on the line and all these sports metaphors. hen she and Larry talked about more beauty, health, fashion, and travel articles. It sounded like they wanted a sweaty Cosmopolitan.” In protest six other editorial stafers resigned, practically the whole department. In the fall, the Florida- based Charter Publishing, which also published Redbook, reached an agreement with Billie Jean King to take over the publishing side of the business, while leaving her with editorial control. Journalist and freelance writer Cheryl McCall became the new editor.43 In 1977 the magazine went through another transition to another new editor — Le Anne Schreiber — and a new location, New York, having pre- viously been published in San Mateo. hey were up to 185,000 copies a month, but Carlo Vitorini, president of Charter publishing, admited, “Our biggest single challenge is awareness that the magazine even exists.” For her part Billie Jean King concluded that women Sports had become too narrow, too concerned with the serious athlete: “It should appeal more to the active woman who plays a couple of hours of recreational tennis a week, or goes hiking or bicycling on weekends.”44 By early 1978 things were once again in crisis mode. In January, King told readers in her monthly publisher’s leter that she was tired of slow but steady growth and wasn’t willing to wait ten years to see her magazine take of. “If I had that kind of patience, I’d be a golfer — or at least be able to out- last Chris Evert in a baseline rally on clay. But let’s face it, I’m not that kind of person. For beter or worse, I play a serve- and- volley game. I want this magazine to go today.” She knew that there were hundreds of thousands of women and girls out there interested in sports — the Title IX participa- tion numbers conirmed this — so she proposed a grassroots subscription drive that enlisted current readers to suggest ive sports- minded friends to receive a free copy to jumpstart interest.45 It didn’t work. Even though circulation was strong and advertising rev- enues were good, the magazine was running a $1.5 million deicit, which was too much of a liability when Charter Publishing merged with Downe Communications. he February 1978 issue was the last before women Sports folded.46

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Billie Jean King’s vision of a sports magazine for women did survive for another twenty years, however, in various incarnations. In January 1979 the magazine was renamed Women’s Sports, a joint venture of Women’s Sports Publications, Inc., and the Women’s Sports Foundation. Douglas Latimer was listed as publisher, Margaret Roach as editor, and Billie Jean King as founder, although she no longer played an active role. he magazine, which still maintained its glossy format, was conceived to serve a dual purpose: as the membership publication of the Women’s Sports Foundation as well as a general magazine encouraging “more and more women to discover for themselves the added dimensions that participation in active sports can bring to their lives.” In 1984 the magazine was rechristened Women’s Sports and Fitness, and it moved even further away from its feminist beginnings.47 What are the lessons of women Sports for our broader understanding of sports and feminism in the 1970s? Even when interest in women’s sports was exploding in the decade and more women and girls participating in organized sports than ever before, there was not a clear or obvious way to harness this niche. Billie Jean King was a big name, but not big enough to singlehandedly guarantee the success of a venture like this. From a business perspective, the diiculties of launching a magazine from scratch were just too overwhelming, especially for neophytes such as Billie Jean and Larry King. In comparison, Ms. magazine drew on a much deeper pool of jour- nalistic experience and talent, as well as a broader base of potential readers, which allowed it to surmount some of its early business hurdles as well as articulate a clearer sense of what the mission of the magazine was. And yet it too struggled. Part of women Sports’ diiculty was that the categories of “women” and “sports” were too broad and difuse. Some women were hard- core, elite competitors, others were interested mainly in recreational activity; some wanted to learn about exotic new sports, others wanted information about lifestyle and itness issues; certain readers wanted actual news and results from the world of sports, others wanted more self- help articles; most prob- lematically, some already embraced or were willing to embrace a feminist perspective when it came to sports, others saw no relationship at all be- tween the two. As the magazine found, it was just too hard to be all things to all people. Gradually itness trumped both hard- core sports coverage and feminism.48 here are many intriguing parallels between the histories of Ms. maga- zine and women Sports in their various incarnations. Both had a prominent

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celebrity — Gloria Steinem and Billie Jean King — atached to the maga- zine as a prime asset. Both struggled to reconcile the need to accept ad- vertising, even advertising that was not demeaning to women, with the dependence on companies and products, such as cigaretes, cosmetics, and alcohol, whose health hazards were already well known or that were part of the beauty culture the magazines were trying to subvert. Neither was a traditional mass- circulation women’s magazine but instead something of a hybrid, even though each still looked prety similar to any woman’s maga- zine that might be found on the newsstand. Each developed an unusually close and reciprocal relationship with its readers, who expected such great things from the magazine that they devoured it from cover to cover when it turned up in their mailboxes and weren’t shy about leting the editors know when they felt the magazine had let them down. here are also intriguing parallels in terms of chronology. Each was launched in the lush of feminist optimism in the early 1970s when all things seemed possible where women were concerned, and each was struggling by late in the decade, just as feminism itself confronted a growing back- lash. In 1979 Ms. became a nonproit under the Ms. Foundation; in 1987 it was sold to an Australian media conglomerate, and in 1990, ater a short hiatus, it reemerged as an ad- free, subscription- supported venture. Simi- larly women Sports reemerged in 1979 with a link to the Women’s Sports Foundation, renamed itself Women’s Sports and Fitness, and survived until 1998 when Conde Nast bought it and folded it into its own women’s sports magazine, which promptly folded, as did the atempt to launch Sports Il­ lustrated for Women soon ater. Today Ms. soldiers on alone, not the same feminist magazine that it was in the 1970s — but, as any aging feminist can atest, who is?49

About the same time that Billie Jean King hatched the idea that be- came women Sports, she also took the beginning steps to establish the Wom- en’s Sports Foundation (WSF), a nonproit national organization that in its more than three decades of existence has become the preeminent advo- cacy group for Title IX and women’s sports in the United States. As with many of her ventures, this one had personal roots: “When I was growing up there was no organized group that said sports were just as good for girls as boys. Girls and women were on their own.” Her vision was straightforward and far reaching: “he Foundation is dedicated to encouraging women of all ages and all skill levels to participate in sports activities for health, en-

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joyment, and development.” Actually, she oten joked, the real goal of the Women’s Sports Foundation was not to have one at all: “Because if we were really having equality, we wouldn’t need one.”50 As with the founding of any organization that starts small and later goes on to greater things, it isn’t always easy to pinpoint the exact genesis of the group. Larry King had spurred his wife to start women Sports, but her two coconspirators for the Women’s Sports Foundation were Donna de Varona, the Olympic swimmer who became a pioneering sportscaster for ABC, and skier Suzy Chafee. Donna de Varona recalls contacting Chafee ater the Riggs match and asking her to set up a meeting for the three of them to discuss a possible foundation, which was followed by de Varona lying out to California at Larry King’s urging to discuss the idea further.51 Another version of the foundation’s genesis has the three women realizing the need for an advocacy group for women’s sports while lobbying in Washington in late 1973 and early 1974, most likely for the Women’s Educational Equity Act then making its way through Congress.52 While Donna de Varona always considered herself one of the founders of the organization because of her early role (she also served as its irst pres- ident), the oicial incorporation papers iled with the state of California on May 2, 1974, listed only three names: Billie Jean King, Larry King, and their business manager James Jorgensen. he original rationale anticipated the major goals that have animated the foundation ever since, although the bal- ance has shited back and forth over time in relation to the changing social and political climate:

1 To educate women and the general public with respect to women in sports and women’s athletic capabilities and achievements;

2 To promote equal rights and opportunities for women in sports and to educate women in sports and the general public as to dis- crimination against women in sports;

3 To educate and support women in increasing their athletic good sportsmanship and fair play;

4 To encourage and support the participation of women in sports for their health, enjoyment and career opportunities.

Billie Jean donated $5,000 she had won in a tennis tournament to cover the legal costs. By the time the bills were paid, there was about $500 let in the bank.53 Ater the initial incorporation, the foundation basically remained dor-

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mant until early 1976, which is oten given as its founding year. his lag was not due to a shortage of enthusiasm or interest, just a lack of cash, time, and leadership. At that point Eva Auchincloss, then the associate editor at women Sports, was approached by Jim Jorgensen about becoming the irst executive director of the foundation. he editorial staf of women Sports was in the process of relocating to New York, but Auchincloss wanted to stay in California, so the idea clicked. From a small oice in San Mateo, whose rent was paid by the tennis star, Auchincloss atempted to igure out how a volunteer organization with only one paid staf member — herself — could have an impact. Although she was interested in sports, Auchincloss initially did not identify herself as a feminist; but as the foundation grew under her leadership, her awareness of the links between expanding opportunities for women and girls in sports and the broader feminist struggle for equality in the political and personal realms was cemented.54 Billie Jean King summed up the mood and the challenges for the Wom- en’s Sports Foundation ater the irst advisory meeting was held in New York in June 1976: “Everyone present at the meeting agreed that our irst priority was to change society’s atitudes — there are still negative ideas and prejudices loating around — about women in sports.” How could a start- up with limited funds achieve such an ambitious goal? he key, they decided, was mass education: “teaching both children and parents that sports are important for everyone and that girls have been missing out all the time.” In King’s vision, the interrelationship of mind and body was always integral to a total human being who was both female and feminist: “Being a side- liner does not prepare a woman for an active, equal role in our society,” she argued. “Being a participant does prepare women for the challenges of the many careers that are opening to them.”55 Starting out with barely 1,000 supporters, the board set an ambitious goal of membership of 50,000 by the end of 1977, with a clear intent to inlu- ence public policy and popular ideas through strength in numbers. Despite a few initial atempts to set up local women’s sports associations, the pre- dominant thrust of the Women’s Sports Foundation has been to function as a broad- based national advocacy organization representing the collective voice of women and men interested in women’s sports rather than a grass- roots efort. Even though the board realized that New York or Washington, D.C., would have been beter bases of operation than San Mateo, there was no money for oices or to relocate staf. Not until 1986 did the Women’s Sports Foundation leave California for New York.56

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Part of the foundation’s strategy, which still animates the organization today, was to enlist the support of prominent female athletes who were will- ing to lend their names and prestige to the ledgling organization. he media was interested in these women and therefore would provide free publicity and coverage for events they atended. Donna de Varona and Suzy Chafee, for example, were especially generous with their time in the early stages: as de Varona put it, “Although we didn’t have power or money, we did have vis- ibility.” Other athletes who signed on at the start included sprinter Wyomia Tyus, speedskater Diane Holum, diver Micki King, sotball star Joan Joyce, golfer Jane Blalock, bowler Paula Sperber, and volleyball player Mary Jo Peppler, with Chris Evert joining Billie Jean King (the chair) to represent the world of tennis.57 Many of these athletes had gathered for the irst Women’s Superstars Competition in Houston in December 1974, an unusual chance for twenty- three elite competitors from a broad range of sports to get to know other female athletes they had oten only read about in the newspaper — and to win some serious cash. (he winner, Mary Jo Peppler, took home almost $50,000.) During the hours the athletes spent waiting around while the events unfolded for the sole convenience of the television crews, many ex- pressed an interest in trying to maintain their sense of camaraderie by orga- nizing some sort of loose confederation that spoke for all women in sports. At the time, though, they were too busy with the competition to take any more concrete steps.58 he Women’s Sports Foundation also drew on the support, inancial and otherwise, of prominent celebrities and business leaders. he sports- loving television star Dinah Shore, an inluential promoter of the professional women’s golf tour, was a prominent early supporter.59 Joining a bit later but making up for lost time was Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, who became a trustee in 1979 and a major contributor soon ater. Schulz was especially generous in allowing the foundation and other feminist organizations to use sports- related comic strips (think Peppermint Paty as a pitcher or Lucy telling Charlie Brown he wasn’t good enough to play on her team) to il- lustrate their newsleters and bulletins.60 he WSF also drew support from leaders in sports- related ields such as television, especially Frank Giford at ABC Sports, as well as corporate support from Colgate- Palmolive, Bristol Myers, and General Mills. Unlike every other organization from this period founded or dominated by Billie Jean King, no cigarete money seems to have been involved from the very start.61

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he initial agenda of the Women’s Sports Foundation was ambitious for such a small outit; many of its goals only came to fruition decades later. he foundation envisioned a Women’s Sports Hall of Fame to bring recognition to outstanding female athletes and build popular awareness of their contri- butions.62 It anticipated ofering scholarships, especially for summer camps and for training expenses of aspiring women athletes, as well as sponsoring competitions and clinics to stimulate interest. It planned to compile lists of Title IX athletic scholarships available through colleges and universi- ties and maintain a reference library on a broad range of topics relating to women and sports. It even hoped to sponsor sports medicine research. At the beginning, however, long- term goals and priorities took a back seat to dealing with the basic necessity of creating a viable organization.63 he Women’s Sports Foundation took a signiicant step forward in terms of public visibility in 1978. Executive director Auchincloss later gave credit to newly hired fundraiser Holly Turner, who was based in New York: “hanks to Holly’s creative talents, we became the irst non- proit organization to marry personalities to corporate interests by designing programs that were atractive advertising and public relations vehicles for the corporation.”64 Symptomatic of how the organization used publicity and public events to build support from corporate sponsors and individual donors was a three- day beneit weekend in Las Vegas in February 1978 called “All Star Salute to Women in Sports,” which culminated in a ninety- minute, late- night special on ABC. (As in the Batle of the Sexes match, the increasingly symbiotic relationship between television and sports was very evident by the 1970s.) he irst of many galas held over the years, it drew corporate support from such large companies as Bristol- Myers, Burger King, Coca- Cola USA, Do- maine Chandon, Tifany and Company, and United Air Lines. Two months later the Women’s Sports Foundation established the Wade Trophy, named for pioneering basketball player Margaret Wade. he 1978 Wade Trophy was presented to Carol Blazejowski of Montclair State University as the best female collegiate basketball player at an awards dinner in New York City, sponsored by Stayfree (manufacturers of feminine hygiene products such as maxi pads).65 he Women’s Sports Foundation added lobbying to its agenda when it joined the public ight to preserve Title IX in 1979. Since the organiza- tion only became operational in 1976, it missed out on the early batles that roiled Washington in 1974 and 1975 over the failure of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) to issue regulations and the various

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atempts to exempt revenue- producing sports from the law’s coverage. In the foundation’s early promotional material Title IX was rarely mentioned by name, but that silence changed in 1979 when the Women’s Sports Foun- dation threw itself into the batle to get HEW to enforce the law. Realizing that numbers talked, the group quickly assembled a coalition including twenty- six national sports organizations and eighteen prominent individu- als to back a declaration asking for speedy review of the pending athletic regulations.66 In September a Women’s Sports Foundation delegation including race car driver Janet Guthrie, golfer Carol Mann, Olympic hurdler Lacey O’Neal, and swimmer Donna de Varona went to Washington to meet with President Jimmy Carter and HEW secretary Patricia Roberts Harris. “We’re here as a living statement that we want women to be able to grow up as part of the American tradition of participation in sports,” de Varona told a news conference. “We want to show the president, Secretary Harris and members of Congress that there is visible grassroots support for Title 9, that it’s not just an issue for lawyers, educators or people outside the system.” Relect- ing his administration’s somewhat problematic relationship with the femi- nist movement, Jimmy Carter made no deinitive statements about Title IX but told Donna de Varona that he did support women’s sports. From that point on Title IX remained at the top of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s priorities.67 he year 1979 also saw the reincarnation of Women’s Sports as part of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s outreach. Subscribers to the magazine prob- ably noticed litle change at irst besides the addition of an apostrophe to the title (to the eternal consternation of librarians and researchers trying to track it down in library databases), and the fact that Billie Jean King no longer contributed a publisher’s leter each month. In what seems to have been a mutually beneicial relationship, the magazine donated editorial and advertising space to the foundation, including a page for a monthly column called “Strides.” In return the magazine received editorial and journalistic input as well as an ongoing link with Billie Jean King. he Women’s Sports Foundation remained ailiated with the magazine until the publication folded in 1998.68 With its grand visions for political and personal athletic change, it was incumbent on the Women’s Sports Foundation to ind ways to raise money as well as build popular goodwill toward women athletes. In 1980, it de- buted its irst annual “Salute to Women in Sports” gala in New York City,

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which raised $70,000 for the foundation, about half the funds needed to carry out their current budget. Showing a strong sense that the history of women’s sports did not just begin in 1972 with Title IX, the foundation in- ducted nine women into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In the pioneer category honorees were Paty Berg, Amelia Earhart, Gertrude Ederle, Althea Gibson, Eleanor Holm, and Babe Didrikson Zaharias. he contemporary category honored Janet Guthrie, Billie Jean King, and Wilma Rudolph. he gala also honored two Sportswomen of the Year: Tracy Aus- tin (professional) and Mary Decker (amateur).69 Such gala events, which gave athletes a chance to get together in long dresses and high heels rather than sweat suits and sneakers, served to build the kind of camaraderie among networks of athletes that the Women’s Sports Foundation wanted to tap. Ater all, having a prominent Olym- pic medalist or Wimbledon champion endorse a foundation initiative increased its cachet and brought welcome publicity. Corporate sponsors proved eager to align themselves with these popular athletes, especially if it would help sell products. Not everyone was enthusiastic about these galas. Sports activist Pat Griin caustically pointed out that athletes were given free hairstyle and makeup advice before the annual dinner, but “the men atending the dinner are not ofered similar help with their appear- ance.” Griin drew this message: “Female athletes in their natural state are not acceptable or atractive and therefore must be ixed and ‘femmed up’ to compensate for their athleticism.” Like the proverbial half- full versus half- empty glass, these fashion makeovers can be read either as a harmless game of dress- up or a crass cop- out to dominant ideas of femininity and hetero- sexuality. Obviously it’s a litle of both.70 One of the original purposes of the Women’s Sports Foundation was to serve as a clearinghouse of information on women’s sports, a place where young athletes or their parents could turn for facts, referrals, encourage- ment, and strategy. Actually the organization was not the irst to have this idea: the credit belongs to the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL). What eventually became SPRINT, a national clearinghouse on women in sports, started out in 1975 as WEAL’s Sports Kit, a collection of news articles, studies of sex discrimination in schools and physical education programs, information about Title IX enforcement (or lack thereof ), and speciic ex- amples of sex discrimination. By the summer of 1978, the Sports Kit con- tained close to twenty articles and memoranda, accompanied by selected

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bibliographies on women and sports, as well as audio- visual materials and a chart of federal laws and regulations.71 Keeping the Sports Kit up to date was initially a volunteer activity, and as the demand increased, a serious responsibility. In the fall of 1977 WEAL sought and won funding from the U.S. Oice of Education under the Women’s Educational Equity Act of 1974 to set up SPRINT, its national clearinghouse, with a full- time staf and a toll- free hotline for complaints of sex discrimination in sports and requests for information. (A few of the callers were looking for a new communications company called Sprint that shared the name.) he WEEA funding allowed the clearinghouse to expand beyond its initial incarnation as “a shoebox full of newspaper clippings” to “a roomful of iles and a national network of contacts.” In 1978 WEAL began publication of a quarterly newsleter called “In the Running,” which provided updates on advocacy on women in sports until it expired in 1982 when WEEA funding ran out.72 Luckily the Women’s Sports Foundation was able to pick up the slack. In 1981 the organization had instituted a toll- free 800 number of its own called Sportsline, made possible by a $5,000 grant from Jess Bell, the head of Bonne Bell cosmetics, who was a strong supporter of women’s sports, especially running. he hotline started out in California and then went na- tional in April. he “Strides” column called it a “long- standing dream” for the foundation and enthused, “If you have a sports question, you can call the toll- free number and receive an answer immediately.” In its irst year, it logged 2,141 calls. his feature is still a prominent service of the organiza- tion today.73 Although Billie Jean King remained the most prominent female athlete associated with the Women’s Sports Foundation, always willing to share her celebrity for the cause of women’s sports, she did not play a large role in its day- to- day operation in its early years. By 1982, for example, she was listed only as founder and an honorary member of the board of trustees. A case can be made that Donna de Varona, who served as the foundation’s irst oicial president from 1978 to 1984, was actually more critical to the start- up stage of the group than Billie Jean King. As Donna Lopiano later told de Varona, “In fact everyone knows, Billie Jean King included, that if it wasn’t for you, the Women’s Sports Foundation wouldn’t be here today. If it was not for your leadership and Eva [Auchincloss] and Holly [Turner]’s role in staing the everyday activities of the organization, the foundation

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would never have developed into the force it is because Billie Jean King was not involved during the crucial beginning years.”74 he Women’s Sports Foundation is an interesting example of the many ideas that Billie Jean King seemed to spray like tennis balls all over a prac- tice court, some of which were good but many of which were not, and most of which either worked or didn’t without her active involvement. In other words, she was great at founding things, not so good at staying around to run them. A similar dynamic doomed her broadcasting career in the 1970s, when she proved far too impatient for television work: “My temperament is beter suited to charging the net and ending the point — win or lose — than waiting endlessly for the equipment to be set up and the show to un- fold.” She always preferred her role as the sparkplug rather than the careful, behind- the- scenes institution builder. To her credit, her commitment to people and organizations she cared deeply about never lagged.75 Billie Jean King was absolutely right on about the need for a national advocacy group for women in sports in the 1970s, a time when there was still so much to be done in terms of just generating basic participation op- portunities, overcoming stereotypes, and building goodwill for what was then the novel concept that women and girls had just as much talent and interest in sports as did men and boys. King was also prescient in envision- ing an organization that joined the needs and interests of elite competitive athletes with a parallel purpose of encouraging all women and girls to be physically active, even though the balance between those two constituen- cies sometimes has been a point of contention. From the start she put her sports celebrity at the foundation’s disposal, excelling at garnering inan- cial backing for its initiatives from major American corporations. Not only was supporting women’s sports good for public relations, she argued, it was also good for business. Ater all, female athletes are consumers too. As Nike soon discovered, there was lots of money to be made by telling women to just do it.76 Although it rarely used the word, from the start the Women’s Sports Foundation had a feminist agenda, precisely because its mission of en- couraging participation for women in sports necessitated promoting equal opportunities for them to do so in the irst place. And yet its feminism — deliberately — was muted, much more of the liberal than the radical vari- ety, dedicated to working within the existing system rather than mounting an institutional critique of the sports world from the outside.77 As Donna Lopiano later observed, temperamentally Billie Jean King was very good

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at playing the middle; her role in presenting the Women’s Sports Foun- dation as a reasonable and moderate alternative to more extreme posi- tions was a calculated political strategy. It was also the essence of liberal feminism.78 Over the years the Women’s Sports Foundation has grown into a multi- million dollar outit with national outreach on all aspects of women’s sports, which of course makes it a major success story. It has proven espe- cially adept at using print and electronic media to get its message across. But there is still that other side: more than thirty- ive years ater its found- ing, there remains a real, demonstrable need for a Women’s Sports Founda- tion to serve as an advocate for women in sports, especially where Title IX is concerned. Billie Jean King’s hope for the day when such an organization would no longer be necessary is still a ways of in the future.79

Billie Jean King’s inal professional undertaking in the 1970s was prob- ably the one closest to her heart: World Team Tennis. Like all her other business and charitable activities, Larry was very much involved from the start, making this a true team efort. Like her other endeavors as well, it was conceived to provide a showcase for the tennis player as her career was winding down. It also promised the potential — never fully realized — of turning team tennis into a proitable and popular undertaking that com- peted successfully for the consumer sports dollar. “he biggest sports in the world are team sports,” Billie Jean reinforced, “and I want to make tennis huge. We’re a small universe and that bothers me.” Tennis traditionalists doubted the team concept would catch on, but Billie Jean King lectured the nay- sayers: “Most people don’t ever think any change in tennis will go, and every change in recent years has gone like crazy. Team tennis will, too.” Fi- nally, Team Tennis was a way of puting her commitment to sports equality for women into a concrete, marketable package.80 Billie Jean and Larry King’s philosophy of World Team Tennis (they added the World because they truly believed this would be a global phe- nomenon) rested on a desire to make tennis, one of the most individualis- tic of sports, into a team endeavor, complete with rosters of players and a home base whose citizens could cheer them on just the way they would a local basketball or football franchise. Said George MacCall, the irst com- missioner: “I think the team concept and the league are Americana. Every major sport is built around these concepts.” Following the major sports model, they hoped these fans would be a raucous, engaged audience, like

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those who had cheered or booed at the Houston Astrodome when Billie beat Bobby, not the traditional stodgy country club set. “Polite applause at tennis matches is ridiculous,” said the tennis star. “People are going to be allowed to get up and walk around, boo, scream, do whatever they want. I think it will be more exciting for the players, more emotional to have the fans involved.”81 One of the real atractions of the team concept for a feminist such as Billie Jean King was the chance it ofered for men and women to compete together on a team and have the outcome equally dependent on the eforts of both sexes. “Whatever I do must relect my values — like equality. People need to see men and women working together to atain a goal — both in leadership and supportive roles. hat principle works well with tennis, where both genders work together toward a common goal.” Larry agreed: “hat’s the future, I think. Men and women in professional sports together.” Actually tennis already ofered a popular precedent: mixed doubles, which in sportswriter Bud Collins’s words, “stands alone among major sports in ofering women an opportunity to play with and against men on an even batleield and in the line of ire.”82 Team tennis took that concept even further: teams would have equal numbers of men and women on their rosters. he format also promoted equality: play was divided into two halves, each featuring one set of men’s singles, women’s singles, and mixed doubles; the winning team was the one whose players collectively won the most games. Other innovations in- cluded doing away with traditional scoring (irst to score four points wins), allowing substitutions, a heavy reliance on the tie- breaker, and a multicolor synthetic court surface. he season ran from May through July, with a two- week break in the middle so players could compete at Wimbledon. he inancial strategy behind World Team Tennis worked this way: six- teen franchises were sold at $50,000 each, representing fairly large markets such as Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Detroit, San Francisco, and St. Louis. When John Newcombe, then one of the top- ranked men, signed a ive- year contract with the Houston EZ Riders in the summer of 1973, the credibility of the league rose. Yet there was a nagging suspicion that not all the franchise owners were very knowledgeable about tennis as the league prepared for its irst drat. Noted Bud Collins caustically, “Nobody has gone into business with greater unfamiliarity since Laurel and Hardy joined the Foreign Legion. Anybody who ever held a racquet was drated. If you weren’t, you should quit the game in shame.” From the start the main

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problem was that atendance never approached the breakeven point to pay the huge salaries needed to lure marquee players to join the efort.83 In 1974, Billie Jean King, still a year away from even her irst retirement, was one of the biggest draws. She signed on as the player- coach of the Philadelphia Freedom and was delighted when her good buddy Elton John wrote the song “Philadelphia Freedom” to be used as a team anthem. Ever the optimist, she predicted that women would be coaching in other pro- fessional sports such as football, basketball, and baseball within ive years. Most of all, she was ecstatic about the new format. “I’ve waited 20 years to see crowds react the way they do at our team tennis matches.” hat year the Philadelphia Freedom were the runners- up to Denver in the World Team Tennis league championship.84 But all was not well. Despite having won the championship, the Denver franchise folded and was picked up by Phoenix. Stories of mishaps, inan- cial and otherwise, in the irst season included players not being paid and only 200 hearty souls turning up for some matches. he number of teams dwindled from sixteen to eleven, and only four of the original owners were back. “It was so bad,” said the owner of the New York Sets, “that we couldn’t even get people out to see how shoddy the product was.”85 One potential solution was to try to build up the New York franchise on the theory that a strong presence there would garner more media at- tention and help the league as a whole. In a complicated deal, Philadelphia Freedom owner Dick Butera traded Billie Jean King to the New York Sets, earning a spot as the New York Times “Quotation of the Day” with this re- mark: “It’s not an easy thing to let Billie Jean go. I feel like King Faisal giv- ing away his oil wells.” Billie Jean King received a reported $600,000 for signing a multiyear contract with the Sets and quickly pronounced herself happy to be a New Yorker, at least for part of the year: “It’s a great place to live if you have the money. I have it and I might as well spend it.” Sounding like a preacher leading a revival, her enthusiasm for the league remained unbounded: “I guarantee you, in ive years every player is going to want to be on World Team Tennis irst. hey don’t understand what it means.”86 he 1976 season was somewhat beter, but the inancial situation of the league overall was still dicey. New players signed on, including Rod Laver, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Ilie Nastase, but this just increased the bloated salaries that were sinking the league. For example, the New York Sets payroll totaled almost $400,000: Billie Jean King ($130,000), Virginia Wade ($90,000), Sandy Mayer ($55,000), Fred Stolle ($55,000), Phil Dent

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($50,000), with Lindsey Beaven and Linda Siegelman bargains at $8,500 each. Led by King and Virginia Wade, the Sets won the W TT title that year, a special satisfaction to King because it was the only tennis championship that had eluded her. But with fan atendance still hovering in the low four digits, there was no way to turn the franchise into a viable enterprise.87 he whole undertaking was also rife with potential conlicts of interest, many of them revolving around Billie Jean and Larry King. For example, in October 1976 Larry King was named interim president of the New York Sets, where his wife was the star atraction, having just stepped down the week before as president of the league, where his wife was one of the main draws. In 1977 Larry owned interests in the Pennsylvania Keystones and the Golden Gaters in addition to the New York team, and was a major partner in WTT Properties, the league’s main marketing arm. Noted one friend: “It’s not as if Larry is taking the money from both ends and hurting people. It’s just that he’s protecting his interests from both ends.” Larry rationalized these multiple, overlapping responsibilities by saying his commitment to the entire league would help protect the investments of individual backers, of which he, of course, was one of the most prominent. hrough the league’s initial ups and downs, he remained totally commited to the concept: “It’s a business. And I know this league is going to make money.”88 In 1977 the league reorganized itself once again, instituting a new drat that aimed to distribute the talent more evenly. World Team Tennis limped along but was basically kaput by the end of the 1978 season, when the re- named New York Apples announced they were folding, and seven of the remaining nine teams followed suit. Larry King captured the logistics of the demise especially well: “he domino theory that failed to materialize in Indochina worked like a charm with World Team Tennis.”89 In retrospect the reasons are obvious — and overwhelming. World Team Tennis never developed an adequate fan base among tennis players willing to turn out to watch the matches. Nor did team tennis manage to atract enough fans from other sports to build up its spectator base, let alone live up to the notion that fans would root for their “home” team against teams from other cities. he absence of male tennis stars such as Jimmy Connors, Arthur Ashe, and Bjorn Borg also hurt the venture. In the end, though, it was a simple fact of economics: the salaries were way too high for the monies coming in, especially since there was no television revenue except for the inal league championship. Here those highly individualistic — and

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well- paid — tennis players bear just as much responsibility for the league’s demise as its lawed business plan or shaky inancing.90 By the time the irst incarnation of World Team Tennis folded in 1978, Billie Jean King found herself at the inevitable point in an athlete’s career when it becomes clear that while there will be lashes of brilliance and oc- casional triumphs, she no longer can count on performing at a peak level of performance every day. Luckily she had already been busy laying the groundwork to capitalize on the revolution in women’s sports that had co- incided with the height of her playing career. WomenSports magazine was ahead of its time — it still is, since there is no mass- market sports maga- zine geared to women. he Women’s Sports Foundation continues to grow, broadening its agenda to include a new focus on overcoming physical inac- tivity and obesity in young girls; Billie Jean King is still very much its most visible symbol. Even Team Tennis, reborn in the 1980s, continues on a fairly solid basis, with Billie Jean serving as its most enthusiastic cheerleader as she continues to wait for the rest of the American sporting public to catch up to her vision of tennis as a team sport. You need to win two sets out of three to prevail in women’s tennis. In terms of Billie Jean King’s main business and charitable undertakings in the 1970s, she won two of those sets — the Women’s Sports Foundation and team tennis — and put up a good ight for a women’s sports magazine. Not a bad outcome for a tennis player, on or of the court.

Billie Jean King’s favorite place on earth is probably Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Here she plays in a singles match at Wimbledon in 1962, where as an unseeded,

somewhat chunky eighteen- year- old player she knocked of top seed Margaret Smith

in the irst round. (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYW T&S

Collection, LC- USZ62- 120847)

Women of Billie Jean King’s generation more oten aspired to marriage than careers, but she

wanted both. Her husband, Larry, whom she married in 1965, wholeheartedly supported her

dream. heir marriage, which lasted until 1987, spanned the explosion in women’s professional

tennis, but in 1965 they were just two young kids wondering what the future would hold.

(Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC- USZ62- 115796)

Billie Jean King was never afraid to speak truth to power. In 1970 King and eight

other players deied the United States Lawn Tennis Association by seting up

their own professional tour sponsored by Virginia Slims. Here Nancy Richey,

Billie Jean King, and Julie Heldman hold a press conference on October 7, 1970,

to announce their decision. Showing the condescension with which the media

treated women at the time, the original caption referred to the tennis players as

“girls.” (© Betmann/corbis)

In 1971 Billie Jean King became the irst female tennis player to earn $100,000 in a year. Hoping

to raise the proile of women’s tennis, she milked this milestone by donning a crown at a New

York event and later received a congratulatory phone call from President Richard Nixon. Note

the banner behind her with the irst words of the Virginia Slims slogan: “You’ve come a long way,

baby.” (© Betmann/corbis)

You can’t have a spectacle without the media, and both Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs

were more-than-willing participants in the hoopla leading up to the Batle of the Sexes on

September 20, 1973. Here they trade barbs at a press conference the day before the match.

When the verbal jockeying ended and the tennis began, it was all Billie Jean, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

(© Betmann/corbis)

Billie Jean King’s victory in the Batle of the Sexes conirmed her status as America’s irst female

sports superstar. A month ater the match Garry Trudeau’s popular comic strip Doonesbury featured

a series of cartoons inspired by the event. Here a young Joanie Caucus celebrates a feminist

breakthrough at the daycare center where she works. Soon ater, Joan Caucus applies to law school,

joining the legions of women who seized the opportunities created by second- wave feminism

and popular culture moments like the Batle of the Sexes. (doonesbury © 1973 G. B. Trudeau.

Reprinted with permission of univer sal uclick. All rights reserved.)

Dissatisied with the coverage that women athletes received in mass- circulation

magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Billie Jean and Larry King decided to start their

own, women Sports, which debuted in June 1974. No surprise about who graced its

irst cover — Billie Jean — but note the back cover advertisement for Virginia Slims

cigaretes, symptomatic of the close (too close, many would say) relationship between

Billie Jean King, women’s tennis, and the tobacco industry. (© Betmann/corbis)

Billie Jean King pioneered the concept of tennis as a team sport,

and she has always been World Team Tennis’s most enthusiastic

supporter. Typical of the way that business and sport overlapped in

the King family, Larry also found opportunities in Team Tennis as a

promoter and team owner. Here Billie Jean King publicizes her trade

from the Philadelphia Freedom to the New York Sets (soon to be the

New York Apples) in 1975. (© Betmann/corbis)

he symbol of the irst- ever National Women’s Conference held in Houston in November

1977 that most captured the popular imagination was a 2,600- mile torch relay that began in

Seneca Falls, New York. In this widely circulated image, the torch triumphantly arrives in

Houston. Decked out in a bright blue Women on the Move t- shirt, Billie Jean King joins

the inal mile, along with (from let to right) feminists Susan B. Anthony II, Bella Abzug,

and (far right) Bety Friedan, as well as runners Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot, and Michelle

Cearcy. he torch run made the front page of many newspapers, but sports were not a top

priority at the conference. (copyright © Diana Mara Henry)

he revelation in May 1981 that Billie Jean King was being sued by a former female lover brought

the longstanding rumors about the tennis player’s sexuality messily into public view. Here, with

Larry’s arm cloaking her in heterosexual privilege, she admits that she and Marilyn Barnet

had an afair. Billie Jean King’s script — accepting responsibility for the incident and asking for

understanding and forgiveness from her fans and supporters — would became standard practice

for public igures dealing with embarrassing sex scandals. She remains the rare woman, however,

who was forced to deal with this harsh media spotlight. (© Betmann/corbis)

Billie Jean King and fellow tennis great Chris Evert share a moment of

infectious celebration at the opening ceremony of the newly renamed

Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York,

on August 28, 2006, while male stars Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe

look on with bemused detachment. Just as when Billie beat Bobby in 1973,

women athletes proudly claim center stage. Or to put it another way, the

girls win. (© Justin Lane/epa/corbis)

On August 12, 2009, with her mother, Bety, and her partner, Ilana

Kloss, proudly looking on, Billie Jean King received the Presidential

Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, from President

Barack Obama. Honored for her batles for gender equity in sports and

as one of the irst openly lesbian sports igures in America, King once

again demonstrated that sports can be a powerful vehicle for social

change. (© Mathew Cavanaugh/epa/corbis)