Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports

Tennis Hits the Books

“All In: An Autobiography” of Billie Jean King will be released in five days on August 17. In the interim, I am passing the time by revisiting previously published books on her life. This week’s selection is positioned as a history book on the revolution in women’s sports. Interweaving the biography of Billie Jean King with the emergence of women’s athletics makes the history more accessible than when presented as a standalone topic. That story is virtually inseparable from the life of Billie Jean anyway.

Some claim that Billie Jean through the “Battle of the Sexes” match with Bobby Riggs was a driving force in the passage of Title IX. In truth, the landmark legislation passed a full year before the Battle of the Sexes match occurred in 1973. Author Susan Ware could find no reference to Title IX in any of the publicity run up for that match. That influence came much later as implementation and enforcement of Title IX was debated.

Title IX was a part of the Education Amendments passed in 1972. While it has come to be identified most closely with athletics, the scope is much broader. Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. More succinctly, this section is aimed at equal opportunity for both genders in education.

The fact that the implementation and enforcement of Title IX was dominated by athletics in the legislative and judicial process is revealing. In retrospect, it is a commentary on our society as a whole. Sports is life.

The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) is the dominate regulator of intercollegiate sports in the United States. That organization completely missed the implications that Title IX would have on athletics when it was passed in 1972. It belatedly and aggressively inserted itself into the debate in 1974. The organization identified Title IX as a grave threat to the status quo in college athletics. From that point on, is was largely identified as a sports law.

The NCAA was explicitly focused on men’s athletics at the time. In addition to custom, the organization had adopted explicit rule in 1964 that confined its scope to the men. When Title IX was passed in 1972, women’s athletics were under the purview of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). That organization’s approach to athletics was philosophically more recreational and less commercial than the NCAA treated men’s sports.

Billie Jean did not play tennis in college due to the simple fact that athletic scholarships did not exist for women. Title IX leveled the playing field in that regard between men and women. The NCAA lobbied for (and accepted) a provision that institutions had to offer athletic scholarships in proportion to the gendered enrollment at the institution. At the time, more men than women were attending college. That plan backfired in subsequent years when the enrollment of women in college surpassed men.

It wasn’t until Title IX elevated women’s athletics to revenue producing status that the NCAA took an interest. In 1982 following a bitter legal battle, the NCAA took over administration of Women’s athletics from the AIAW. As an organization The NCAA doesn’t come off well in Game, Set, and Match. The recent gender equity review of the NCAA Basketball Championships reveals that probably not a lot has changed.

There is no better closing than words than the ones that appear in the epilogue of the book. “Few public figures, let along athletes, can point to such a deep and far-reaching legacy.” The story of Billie Jean King when interwoven with the story of Title IX, is a culmination of achievement in societal change. At the same time it issues an implicit challenge to do more. It is an unfinished agenda.