Billie Jean King’s 65-year journey to a college diploma, and finishing what she started
Thousands of people in America will collect their college degrees this weekend, among the roughly 2 million students expected to graduate this spring. Only one of them will do so having won 39 Grand Slam titles, including 12 in singles. “I’m still getting messages all day long, I can’t keep up,” Billie Jean King said in an interview Friday, a little less than a week after she walked the stage at California State University, Los Angeles, to collect her diploma — a real one, not one of those honorary degrees that are granted to famous public figures — 65 years after she started studying for it.
“It’s a nice problem to have. And then I’ve got presents,” she said. King has done a lot in life.
She became the world’s best tennis player. She became a groundbreaking symbol of equity in sports when she beat Bobby Riggs in the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes. ” It’s still the most-watched tennis match in history.
She led the group that created what is now the WTA Tour. She has championed and pioneered women’s sports as much as anyone. For more than six decades, though, she felt her resumé still had a hole in it.
She never finished the history degree that she started at Cal State in 1961, because that whole tennis thing kind of got in the way. At 82, just as she did at 17, King prides herself on being a history buff and a learner. And, someone who finishes what she starts.