Billie Jean King, the tennis legend and gender equality advocate, has finally graduated from college at the age of 82, more than six decades after she left to pursue her sporting career. King received her degree in history from California State University, Los Angeles, on Monday, saying: 'Yeah baby, only 61 years!'
King first enrolled at what was then Los Angeles State College in 1961 but left in 1964 to focus on tennis. During that time she won the Wimbledon women's doubles title with Karen Hantze, becoming the youngest pair to do so. She went on to become world number one, amassing 39 grand slam titles and earning the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal.
In her commencement speech, King recalled growing up in a working-class family as the daughter of a firefighter and a homemaker. 'Like so many of my fellow graduates, I am the first member of my immediate family to graduate college,' she said. She chose the college because the tennis coach trained men and women together, which she said was 'revolutionary at the time'.
King, one of the first openly gay professional athletes, said her true motivation since childhood had been to fight discrimination. 'I asked myself, where is everybody else? From that day forward, I committed my life to equality and inclusion for all,' she said. 'We can never understand inclusion unless we’ve been excluded.'
In 1973, King founded the Women's Tennis Association and successfully campaigned for equal prize money at the US Open. That same year, she defeated Bobby Riggs in the famous 'Battle of the Sexes' match, later dramatised in a Hollywood film starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell.
King returned to finish her degree last year. She ended her speech with advice: 'It is a privilege for me to be here as a member of your graduating class.'
