Even at 80, Billie Jean King is still winning awards and making history.
The tennis superstar has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, one of America’s oldest and highest distinctions for outstanding civilians – the first woman athlete ever to receive it, as well as just the tenth individual athlete overall.
It was given, by way of passage of a law signed by President Joe Biden, “in recognition of her courageous and groundbreaking leadership in advancing equal rights for women in athletics, education, and society,” according to the recommendation for the honor, submitted by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. King previously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
“Billie is one of the greatest athletes and ambassadors tennis has ever seen, but her impact off the court is even greater than her performance on it,” Brian Hainline, chairman and president of the USTA, said to Reuters. “She has broken yet another barrier with this award.”
King, once the no. 1 tennis player in the world, won 39 Grand Slam titles between 1966 and 1975, and was on teams that won seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. She is so renowned for her achievements that the Federation Cup is now named after her. She was also inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987, and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990.
King has been, as Gillibrand noted, a pioneer for women in sports – and not just because she bested former No. 1 male player (and noted male chauvinist) Bobby Riggs in the famous “Battle of the Sexes” match in 1973. King also founded both the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Sports Foundation, and fought to secure equal prize payouts and brand sponsorships for women’s professional tennis players. And, she fought for the passage of Title IX, a landmark law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in government-funded educational institutions.
In addition to that, King’s success became a win for LGBTQ representation in sports – although it wasn’t by choice at first. She was publicly outed as a lesbian in 1981 by a former lover, but rather than deny her sexuality as her representatives advised, she chose to live her truth. She called the experience of being outed “horrible” in a 2017 interview with NBC, but added that “the one thing my mother always said, ‘To thine own self be true.’” King ultimately used the experience as an opportunity to form the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative through her sports equity nonprofit, the Billie Jean King Foundation, to promote more inclusive workplaces.
This work is a reflection of her broader philosophy around her time in the sports spotlight – in a widely shared moment of reflection from her autobiography that exemplifies why she’s regarded as a role model, King noted that “tennis taught me … that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.”
