Game, Set, Match

Author Q&A

Q: You have written several books about significant female historical figures in women's history, including Amelia Earhart, Molly Dewson, Mary Margaret McBride, and now Billie Jean King. As an accomplished biographer, what draws you to a new subject?

A: I always look for a subject whose life provides a window on broader themes or questions in women's history, such as women's expanding roles in politics and popular culture or the fortunes of feminism. In Billie Jean King's case, her life provided a perfect window to look at the revolution in women's sports which has reshaped American society since the 1970s.

Q: Why sports history? What do you hope to accomplish by publishing a book about Billie Jean King?

A: I have always been interested in the history of women's sports, but until Billie Jean King there wasn't a female sports figure "big enough" to frame the story. My goal was to tell the story of the revolution in women's sports since the 1970s through the lens of her life. For those with personal memories of Billie Jean King, my book allows them to place her sporting career in the larger historical context of recent U.S. history. And for those for whom she is only a name in a record book, it introduces them to an incredibly significant figure in the world of sports and feminism for the first time.

Q: Did you interview Billie Jean King while writing this book? What might her thoughts be about its forthcoming publication?

A: That is always the first question people ask me, and the answer is yes. I interviewed her at a Women's Sports Foundation event in Boston which allowed me to garner some memorable quotes (such as that feminists tend to think "from the neck up"), and watch her use her celebrity to work a crowd for the cause of women's sports. While she may not agree with all of its conclusions, new generations of readers will now have the historical context to understand why Billie Jean King was so important, thus securing her historical reputation. I hope she will be pleased with this result.

Q: Some people may not remember where they were during the epic match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome in 1973. Perhaps they weren't even born yet. How is this match (and what it represented) still relevant today?

A: One of the most far-reaching changes in the world of sports has been the marketing of sports as entertainment. The "Battle of the Sexes" was a key moment in that trend, demonstrating that vast popular audiences would tune in to a sporting event even if they had never set foot on a tennis court, precisely because it was something everyone was talking about. Whenever popular culture embraces sport as something more than just a game (like the "Dream Team" at the 1992 Olympics or the Women's World Cup soccer victory in 1999), it replicates what the Battle of the Sexes meant to Americans in 1973.

Q: How did the match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs change the way people viewed female athletes?

A: Hard as it is to believe today, many people in 1973 really believed that any man had a huge, insurmountable advantage over any woman because of men's supposed physical superiority. End of conversation. What was so satisfying about the match, which King won handily, was that she demolished that stereotype, and many others about women's second-class status. Sportswriter Christine Brennan, then a fifteen-year-old aspiring athlete, captured it perfectly: "We won. The girls won."

Q: Game, Set, Match links together the biography of Billie Jean King and the passing of Title IX. Why is this such a felicitous pairing?

A: Not only was Billie Jean King an active supporter of Title IX (she still is today), but she also served as the embodiment of the revolution in women's sports opportunities that Title IX sparked. She put a human face on the huge changes underway for women in all facets of sports, indeed in society as a whole.

Q: What was so significant about the passing of Title IX in 1972? Why did it impact the lives of so many female athletes? What did it represent?

A: Title IX put the force of the federal government behind the revolutionary idea that there should be no discrimination against women in educational institutions; since some of the most unequal conditions existed in athletics, Title IX had its greatest impact there. Title IX demonstrates the rewards and difficulties of putting an abstract idea like "gender equity" into concrete, everyday practice and yet many of today's athletes have no idea how recent or far-reaching the access to sports they take for granted is. I hope the book addresses this historical gap.

Q: Other than challenging sexism in women's sports and everyday lives, how did King establish herself as a superstar worthy of a place in tennis and women's history?

A: She did it through sheer hard work, a wealth of athletic talent, a deep love of the game of tennis, backed up by ambition to do things no female athlete had ever done before. Her superstar status was not simply bestowed on her: she worked hard to make it happen.

Q: Throughout the book, you make several references to King's confusion over her own sexual orientation and her eventual "coming out." Do you believe that King's personal struggle with her sexuality is another reason why she is such a noteworthy historical figure?

A: Difficult as her struggle was, it is absolutely critical to Billie Jean King's larger significance. Coming of age in a homophobic era, she hid her sexual feelings for fear of damaging women's tennis and upsetting her conservative parents. Gradually she worked through her fears until she finally publicly embraced her sexuality in the late 1990s, years after her tennis career had ended and just as American society was becoming more tolerant and accepting of homosexuality. Since then she has emerged as a revered gay role model. As such, her life illuminates the last fifty years of gay history.

Q: What are your thoughts on the relationship between Billie Jean King, women's tennis, and the tobacco industry?

A: Billie Jean King always adopted a pragmatic approach--no tobacco money, no women's professional tennis tour--and she never wavered in her belief that the relationship between women's tennis and cigarettes was okay. Unfortunately this stance meant that for generations of Americans women's tennis and cigarette smoking were linked together in the popular imagination. This is a troubling legacy.

Q: Your book includes several visual images of events in Billie Jean King's life covered by the media. Why is this photo gallery so significant?

A: We live in a media-saturated age, and historians can't write recent U.S. history without a healthy dose of photographs. Billie Jean King lived her life in public and that is how people formed their impressions of her. Besides presenting a survey of styles, athletic and otherwise, from the 1960s through the early 1980s, the photo gallery offers a chance to include more recent events, such as President Barack Obama presenting Billie Jean King with the Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Q: Do you have a personal interest in women's sports? Do you consider yourself an athlete?

A: Title IX was passed the year I graduated from college so I had little access to organized sports while I was growing up. The first sport I took up was tennis, spurred on in part by Billie Jean King and the Battle of the Sexes in 1973, and I still play occasionally. But it was the running boom of the 1970s that transformed me into a life-long athlete. I ran the New York Marathon twice in the 1980s and twenty-five straight Bonne Bell/Tufts 10K races in Boston from 1977 until I "retired" in 2001. While I was being successfully treated for breast cancer in 2008, I set as my goal to run the race one more time, which I did--and in a very respectable time. Crossing the finish line that year was one of the proudest moments of my life.