Force for good
In ideal world, everyone on the planet would get to meet Billie Jean King. In fact, everyone on the planet would have 10 minutes of one-to-one chat with her. Unfortunately, with a world population of 7.6 billion, that would take – I think – 144,596 years, so it’s not terribly likely. That is a great pity, because to meet Billie Jean is to experience her greatest gift – greater, astonishingly, than the tennis which earned her 12 Grand Slam singles titles, including six at Wimbledon between 1966 and 1975.
Boiled down to its most fundamental essence, this utterly exceptional human being knows how to make people feel good. Sounds simple, right? Not a bit of it.
As a journalist and sportswriter, I’ve interviewed perhaps a thousand people. Last autumn I had an hour-long chat in London with Billie Jean for the British magazine Radio Times. Physically, two things were immediately striking. First, her height – just 5ft 5in (165cm). (“Short-stature sisters unite,” she tweeted in praise of Simona Halep on Tuesday.) Secondly, her beautiful skin. “Sun cream, tons of it, from the moment it was invented,” she explained, with a trademark throaty chuckle.
One hour later, we finished an interview that was unique in my 30 years’ experience. It’s difficult to articulate without sounding vaguely hysterical, but here goes… She is Mandela-like in the goodness and positivity she radiates.
Even that summation does her down. It makes her sound an insufferable bore, which is all wrong because she laughs frequently, most often at herself. But I have never met anyone who so clearly grasped their own potential effect on other people, in the most affirmative sense. She understands, apparently without ego, that meeting her is memorable, which is itself unusual among the extremely famous. But more specifically, she realises (in a way that you, as the person meeting her, cannot until afterwards) that she can make it memorable for more reasons than just the fact of the meeting alone.
Philadelphia Freedom
Billie Jean is all about breaking down ignorance through mutual understanding - finding the common ground so that we all feel better about ourselves. This is one of the reasons Life magazine named her one of the 100 most significant Americans of the 20th century.
Now 74, this woman who was raised in the Norman Rockwell tradition of 1950s America became not only one of the greatest tennis champions of all time, but a reformist whose relentless pursuit of a better deal for women brought equality to her sport, with a reach far beyond. Barack Obama declared that she changed “how women everywhere see themselves”. Elton John wrote his US No.1 single, Philadelphia Freedom, in celebration of her. Charles M Schulz used his Peanuts cartoon to support the women’s movement after meeting her.
And this, from 18-time Grand Slam champion and three-time Wimbledon winner Chris Evert: "She's the wisest human being I've ever met and has vision people can only dream about. She is my mentor and has given me advice about my tennis and my boyfriends, dealing with my parents and even how to raise children. And she doesn't have any."
This much I knew. But it was only through a face-to-face exchange that I realised her gift for connecting with people as individuals is what makes her such an enabler. As a public figure who has been interviewed a bajillion times, she had no reason to find out anything about me before our meeting. Yet at the end of our hour discussing her life and times, she said to me: "When you see me at Wimbledon next year, be sure to come and say 'hi'. I mean it. I've been reading all about you and your work. Thank you for what you've done for women, and for women in sportswriting. Don't ever give up."
You will understand that hearing Billie Jean King say those words was as surreal as it was exhilarating. But she knew that too, and repeated “I mean it” several times as I gawped at her. I’ve absolutely no doubt she finds something similar to say whenever she can, connecting with as many individuals as possible among the throngs she meets every week.
You may know she is here at Wimbledon 2018, the 58th successive year she has attended The Championships. I’m contemplating how that invitation to “come and say hi” might realistically pan out. Not to worry. I’ve had more than my 10 minutes already. But if you see her, be sure to say hello. Everyone matters to Billie Jean King.
