{"id":644168,"date":"2026-05-15T06:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644168\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T06:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T06:25:11","slug":"tennis-legend-billie-jean-king-82-set-to-graduate-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/644168\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis legend Billie Jean King, 82, set to graduate college"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Billie Jean King<\/a> is preparing to add a college degree to her already impressive resum\u00e9. <\/p>\n

In early 2025, the 82-year-old tennis legend<\/a> returned to California State University, Los Angeles, to finish her bachelor\u2019s degree in history, which she had originally pursued from 1961 through 1964 before leaving to focus on her tennis career. <\/p>\n

Now, more than 60 years later<\/a>, she will participate in Monday\u2019s commencement as a graduate of the institution\u2019s history department. <\/p>\n

\u201cGraduating, it\u2019s just thrilling. Really,\u201d King told USA Today\u2019s Studio IX<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m thrilled because of the way the other people have responded to this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, OK, I\u2019m going to get my degree, but I had no idea people would be so connected and feeling this,\u201d she added, \u201cin every age group. It\u2019s like, \u2018Oh my God,\u2019 now I\u2019m excited. Because they are.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"BillieBillie Jean King attended California State University, Los Angeles, from 1961 through 1964, leaving before she graduated to pursue a career in tennis (Getty)<\/p>\n

During her first year at Cal State LA, she and her tennis partner, Karen Hantze, became the youngest team to win a Wimbledon doubles title. King was 17 and Hantze was 18. They were later dethroned by Martina Hingis, who won at just 15 with Helena Sukov\u00e1 in 1996.<\/p>\n

King admitted that her upcoming collegiate honor \u201cis right up there\u201d with her historic 39 Grand Slam titles \u2014 12 singles, 16 women\u2019s doubles and 11 mixed doubles championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the first one in my immediate family (to graduate college),\u201d she noted. \u201cWhich is important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, King believed she had at least two more years to finish her degree. After looking through her transcripts, BJK Enterprises managing director Marjorie Gantman discovered she was only one year away. <\/p>\n

\"KingKing has won a total of 39 Grand Slam tennis titles (REUTERS)<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just talking out loud and (Gantman) goes, \u2018Well, let me check.\u2019 So she checks and she goes, \u2018Billie, you have three years (completed). I went, \u2018Three years? Oh, I\u2019m going back for sure,\u2019\u201d King recalled.<\/p>\n

King played tennis for nearly 25 years. Throughout her illustrious career, she became known for her activism for gender equality and was the first openly gay prominent female athlete. In 1973, she founded the Women\u2019s Tennis Association with the sole intention of promoting equality in the sport.<\/p>\n

That same year, she successfully championed for equal pay, forcing the U.S. Open to become the first Grand Slam tournament to offer equal prize money to both men and women. <\/p>\n

Months later, she defeated Bobby Riggs in the landmark Battle of the Sexes exhibition match, a pivotal moment for gender equality in sports. Her victory served as inspiration for the acclaimed 2017 sports comedy Battle of the Sexes<\/a>, starring Emma Stone as King, opposite Steve Carell as Riggs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-644168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}