"All In" by Billie Jean King

I know a little, but not a whole lot, about tennis as a sport -- the scoring, the different strokes, etc.  I'm not very sports-minded to begin with, and tennis was certainly not something that was commonly played in the small, rural communities where I grew up on the Canadian Prairies. (I doubt there even WERE any tennis courts for miles and miles around most of them.) (Badminton, yes.  Table tennis, yes. Actual tennis, no.)  I've only ever played it a few times, in high school gym class -- and we probably spent more time walking to and from the courts, located in a public park about 20 minutes away -- probably the only courts in town -- than we did actually playing the game. (This was probably the first town we lived in where there even WAS a tennis court!)  As a lasting gift to the school, when we were in Grade 12/senior year, my class raised funds to have a tennis court built on the school grounds for future generations of students (and the general public) to enjoy (without having to spend half gym period getting there and back!).  It's still there, so far as I know.  

But the names of the games' most famous players are familiar to me. Wimbledon, the most famous of tennis tournaments, always happened in early July, when we were usually visiting my grandparents in Minnesota. (As an adult, it's almost always coincided with my wedding anniversary in early July!)  This was the 1970s -- pre-cable TV, certainly pre-multichannel universe, let along streaming. The rotary TV antenna at their house pulled in five or six channels on a good day -- and it seemed like tennis was on all day, every day, every channel (although that could be an exaggeration of memory on my part ;) ).   I remember watching some games with a cousin who had a huge crush on Bjorn Borg.  ;)  

Among the biggest stars of the game at that time was Billie Jean King. I don't really remember if I ever watched her play, but I certainly knew who she was. I don't remember watching the infamous 1973 Battle of the Sexes in which King defeated the uber-sexist Bobby Riggs, but I sure heard about it, and witnessed the reverberations, including its impact on the feminist movement, and King's subsequent celebrity (which continues to this day). 

So I was interested in reading King's recent memoir, "All In." Happily, it is the June pick for my Nomo Book Club within the Childless Collective online community (just in time for Wimbledon!). It's long: the hardcover clocks in at almost 500 pages, and on my e-reader (with the print magnified, lol), it was more than 1,100.  I'll admit it took me longer to get through than I expected. (I'm beginning to wonder whether I'll make my Goodreads Challenge goal this year in terms of numbers of books completed -- but many of the books I've been reading are long ones, so I do expect to see a significant uptick in the number of pages read!!).    

I enjoyed learning a little more about King's early years and personal life. She was raised in Long Beach, California Her younger brother, Randy Moffitt, was a pro baseball player (a pitcher), including a stint with the Toronto Blue Jays (!).  She married her college sweetheart, Larry King, who became her biggest supporter and business partner.  They wanted and assumed they'd have children (someday...) -- but when confronted with a surprise pregnancy, knew it was not the right time to put Billie Jean's flourishing tennis career on hold, and she had an abortion. They spent a great deal of time apart -- she travelling and playing tennis, he pursuing their shared business interests -- and they gradually drifted apart, eventually divorced, but remain good friends. King also realized, early on, that she was attracted to women, bur remained married and closeted until she was 51 years old, when she was outed by a vengeful ex-lover. She's known her partner/now wife, Ilana Kloss, since she was a promising young junior tennis player in South Africa, and they have been together for more than 40 years. 

As I said, I don't follow tennis that closely -- and I'm not sure I needed to know all the details of what seemed like every tournament King ever entered ;)  (you may feel differently!) -- but I did enjoy the memories evoked by the names of the best tennis players of the day: Evonne Goolagong, Chrissie Evert, Martina Navratilova, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe... (I read Ashe's memoir, "Days of Grace," years ago, after it was published posthumously in 1993, and remember bawling over the final chapter, a letter her wrote to his young daughter Camera, knowing he was dying of AIDS, the result of a blood transfusion during heart surgery).  I really enjoyed her recounting of the historic Battle of the Sexes, and I thought the pace of the story picked up from that point on. 

This book was an excellent reminder -- and a lesson for younger generations -- of how much progress women, as well as LGBTQ+ people and people of colour, have made during my lifetime. Not enough, to be sure (and sadly, some of that hard-won progress is threatened) -- but King's story really brings home just how much things have changed -- and the important role she played in making some of those changes happen. What a trailblazer she was (and is!) -- and not just in the world of tennis.  

Inspired by the civil rights and social justice movements of the times, King fought one battle after another in pursuit of equal opportunities for female tennis players -- including equal prize money. She was instrumental in the creation of a women's professional tennis tour, which gave them the opportunity to actually make a living at playing the sport they loved. She led or helped create a number of different forums and organizations to promote equal opportunities for women in tennis, and in sport generally. 

Now in her 80s (!), King continues to be a supporter of equality rights for women, LGBTQ+ and people of colour. She recently played a key role in helping to launch the new Professional Women's Hockey League: she announced the first pick at the league's first draft last fall, and dropped the puck at the league's first game between Toronto and New York on Jan. 1st this year.  :)   

She's an amazing woman and role model, and I'm glad I read this book and learned more about her and her life.  

4.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to a solid 4 stars on Goodreads.  

This was Book #16 read to date in 2024 (and Book #2 finished in May), bringing me to 36% of my 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 2 books behind schedule to meet my goal. :(  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2024 tagged as "2024 books."