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The night Billie Mean screamed at me!

8K views 81 replies 20 participants last post by  samn 
#1 ·
I think several of you have heard my tale of woe approaching Billie Mean King for an autograph at the Oakland Coluseum in June 1981 during the warm up for a World Team Tennis match. Well, I have been going thru my old photo's, putting together albums (due to the loss of a family member) and I came across these gems.

In the first one my dad snapped a pic (upper left corner)of me getting Ann Kyiomura's autograph just before the King exploded on me!

I think I recognize Brian Gottfried and Marty Reissen with BMK.

Enjoy!
 

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#9 ·
Billie Jean was very nice to me once, back in the 70s. After Virginia she was the first player I worshipped; I knew her autobiography off by heart and found her very inspirational. When I found out both Virginia and Billie Jean were coming to Crystal Palace in London, just a couple of miles from my home, to play in a long-forgotten tournament called the Bremar Cup, I was SO excited. I went to the semi-finals, and happily saw both of them victorious. However a few days before that I'd thought of the idea of writing to Billie Jean, to express my admiration and support and to wish her well for the 1978 season. I didn't receive a reply that week and a couple of months went by but one day I came home from school to find Billie Jean had sent me a card from one of the stops on the Virginia Slims tour in America, thanking me for my support... It really made my day and I still remember her fondly for taking the time in her busy schedule to write to a schoolboy fan the other side of the world!
 
#10 ·
Thanks for sharing your story Mark - about Billie-Mean King :lol:

Sorry about your family loss - hope all is OK.

I recall back in the early 80s when BJK came to Australia and was playing doubles with Sharon Walsh. They just won a match 6-0, 6-0 and I went up to BJK after the match and started asking her all about Francoise Durr! Anyway, BJK was great and talked with me for about 5 mins - never once worrying that I had no interest in her at all! :eek: Then to make my day, she then asked me to wait while she went into the dressing rooms before reappearing with a pen and paper for me to write my address down so she could give it to Frankie for me!!!! I said thanks and congratulated her on the doubles win and then she smacked a kiss right on my lips!!!!!!! :eek: Of course I loved it, and one of my best friends was watching from about 10 yards away in shock.

I told my grandmother a few days later and she said "Don't you dare tell anyone she kissed you!" My grandmother was horrified that she was a lesbian! :lol:

Anyway, I have since dealt with BJK many times about tennis videos and she has always been a pleasure.

You were unfortunate to get her at a very difficult time just after the Marilyn incident.

Of course I am envious that you got to see all those legends live in WTT and the Virginia Slims circuit in the golden days!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lick:
 
#11 · (Edited)
From the CNNSI article on the Fed Cup:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/tennis/11/18/bc.ten.fedcup.ap/index.html

"I consider her [Martina Navratilova] the greatest singles, doubles and mixed player that ever lived," [BJ] King said. "So its a real privilege to have her on the team."

BJK's opinions seem to vary as much as her weight. At one point she was saying Graf was the greatest, now she seems to have gone back to Martina. I admire her for her dynamism, her guts and persistence but sometimes I get the feeling that she says whatever is convenient at any given time.
 
#12 ·
Andy T said:
BJK's opinions seem to vary as much as her weight. At one point she was saying Graf was the greatest, now she seems to have gone back to Martina.
:lol: Billie Jean has a very good estimation of her importance in the scheme of not just tennis, but as one of the 50 most influential people of the past century (LIFE Magazine). Unfortunately, she is under the scrutiny of the spotlight sometimes too much for consistency in her statements, and I personally feel she has colored the historical perspective of many a commentator and reporter- especially about the history and greatness of Margaret Court- her chief rival during her playing days. The all too familiar line "yeah, but 13 of Margaret's titles came at the Australian, when nobody played the tournament" can be traced directly to Billie Jean King- and now everyone from Tracy Austin to Pam Shriver and Mary Carillo all recite this opinion like clockwork when Margaret's record comes up for discussion. Truth is Billie Jean King was the only major player in the 1960s who didn't play in Australia, and Australian women were the best players in the world during the 1960s!
 
#13 ·
ABSOLUTELY alfajeffster, I agree with everything you said here. Her writings invariably make my blood boil because of the way she tries to inflate her own achievements and diminish those of her rivals, especially Margaret Court.

Re Court's thirteen Oz titles, a look at the draws shows, as you say, that in several of those years many of the world's best (many of whom, like Turner, Lehane, and later Melville were Aussies) were there. For example, Court beat Bueno en route to the title in 60, King and Bueno en route to the title in 65, King again in the 69 final, Goolagong in 71 and in 73.
King won the US in 71 in a field which was without Goolagong, Wade or Court and the French in 72 without either Evert or Court.

Similarly, she harps on about how their head to head was close from 1966 on yet it is she who makes the dividing line in 66. It's not nearly as close if you break it between start-66 and 68-end!

She also claims that she should have been #1 for '71 instead of Evonne when most people rank her #3.

She goes on and on about how Court didn't support the slims group at the beginning because she could do very well financially out of the old system but makes it very clear that earning more money was one of the main reasons for the breakaway movement.

I could go on...

I guess it's in the nature of things that great rivals are prickly about their records vis-à-vis one another but at times she seems to impose a view of thze game's history which is decidedly biassed.
 
#14 ·
Thanks for your BJK story Craig! It sounds like Billie had a crush on you! I love your grandmother's comment!

I always fail to mention that besides screaming at me in 1981, I also had the pleasure of catching up to Billie J in Oakland in 1991 after Navratilova beat Seles in the Bank of the West classic. I was back stage waiting for the players to appear from the interview room and BJK walks out. Of course I was all over her like white on rice and she was very nice.

I just like the screaming Billie Mean story better.

On another note...BJK number 1 in 1971? No way! How dare she try to steal Evonne's thunder! :fiery:
 
#16 ·
Mark36 said:
Thanks for your BJK story Craig! It sounds like Billie had a crush on you! I love your grandmother's comment!

I always fail to mention that besides screaming at me in 1981, I also had the pleasure of catching up to Billie J in Oakland in 1991 after Navratilova beat Seles in the Bank of the West classic. I was back stage waiting for the players to appear from the interview room and BJK walks out. Of course I was all over her like white on rice and she was very nice.

I just like the screaming Billie Mean story better.

On another note...BJK number 1 in 1971? No way! How dare she try to steal Evonne's thunder! :fiery:
To be fair, Billie Jean isn't trying to 'steal Evonne's thunder' in claiming that No.1 ranking for 1971! The quote from her first autobiography goes:

"I'd won nineteen of thirty tournaments and dominated the Virginia Slims tournament, and as a surprise little bauble I'd played in enough of the ITLF tournaments to pick up that title too. But when the various world rankings came out for 1971, Evonne Goolagong was No.1 and I was No.2. I was happy for Evonne -after all, she'd won two major championships in the space of a month- but I was disappointed because it meant a lot of people, including the ones who did the rankings, didn't really give full credit to the Slims tour. I felt that being able to play good tennis week in and week out ought to mean as much as winning major titles. Maybe more, even. But a lot of people didn't see it that way'.

Actually, I disagree with her here; Evonne's Championship record clearly elevates her to World No.1 for 1971 in my mind - but I wanted to point out that she wasn't just petulantly claiming she was No.1 and giving Evonne no credit.
 
#17 ·
Declan said:
To be fair, Billie Jean isn't trying to 'steal Evonne's thunder' in claiming that No.1 ranking for 1971! The quote from her first autobiography goes:

"I'd won nineteen of thirty tournaments and dominated the Virginia Slims tournament, and as a surprise little bauble I'd played in enough of the ITLF tournaments to pick up that title too. But when the various world rankings came out for 1971, Evonne Goolagong was No.1 and I was No.2. I was happy for Evonne -after all, she'd won two major championships in the space of a month- but I was disappointed because it meant a lot of people, including the ones who did the rankings, didn't really give full credit to the Slims tour. I felt that being able to play good tennis week in and week out ought to mean as much as winning major titles. Maybe more, even. But a lot of people didn't see it that way'.

Actually, I disagree with her here; Evonne's Championship record clearly elevates her to World No.1 for 1971 in my mind - but I wanted to point out that she wasn't just petulantly claiming she was No.1 and giving Evonne no credit.
How many tournaments did Evonne win in 1971?
 
#18 ·
I think Evonne won around 11 (9 are listed on the women's finals database but there were more) but I don't know how many tourneys she played. Don't you sense sth bitchy in King's "after all, she'd won two major championships in the space of a month" when she goes on to say that she was "play[ing] good tennis week in and week out". It was as if Goolagong did nothing else that year. Also, I don't see how she concludes that people weren't giving credit to the slims tour just because she wasn't #1. Sure they had King, Casals, Richey, Jones and Durr but not Goolagong, Court, Wade, Niessen-Masthoff or Morozova.

I'd say Evonne kept that #1 ranking until May '72 as she added a final at the Oz Open and the South African Championships to her belt before clearly ceding top spot to King at RG and then Wimbledon.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Andy T said:
I think Evonne won around 11 (9 are listed on the women's finals database but there were more) but I don't know how many tourneys she played. Don't you sense sth bitchy in King's "after all, she'd won two major championships in the space of a month" when she goes on to say that she was "play[ing] good tennis week in and week out". It was as if Goolagong did nothing else that year. Also, I don't see how she concludes that people weren't giving credit to the slims tour just because she wasn't #1. Sure they had King, Casals, Richey, Jones and Durr but not Goolagong, Court, Wade, Niessen-Masthoff or Morozova.

I'd say Evonne kept that #1 ranking until May '72 as she added a final at the Oz Open and the South African Championships to her belt before clearly ceding top spot to King at RG and then Wimbledon.
Evonne's 11 tournament wins were a mixed bunch -including minor British tournaments like Sutton (beat Jill Cooper and Joyce Williams) and Guildford (beat Shirley Brasher and cooper again), as well as some 'bigger' events like Leicester (beat Dalton and Hogan). She won the Dewar Cup in Edinburgh (beat Jackie Fayter and Francoise Durr) and Torquay (beat Julie Heldman and Durr again). She also won New Zealand (beat Kathy Harter and Betty Stove) and Holland (beat Kora Schediwy -I don't remember her!! Just looked her up: the German No.5- and Christina Sandberg). She also won at Melbourne (beat Winnie Shaw and Margaret Court), perhaps the biggest win outside the Slams. So perhaps not quite as consistently good as Billie Jean that year, and with fewer quality wins( she also lost to Court a handful of times, as well as Durr and Heldman twice each, Virginia Wade, and Patti Hogan) - but I still feel as if the two Slams trump King's record.
 
#20 ·
Declan said:
Evonne's 11 tournament wins were a mixed bunch -including minor British tournaments like Sutton (beat Jill Cooper and Joyce Williams) and Guildford (beat Shirley Brasher and cooper again), as well as some 'bigger' events like Leicester (beat Dalton and Hogan). She won the Dewar Cup in Edinburgh (beat Jackie Fayter and Francoise Durr) and Torquay (beat Julie Heldman and Durr again). She also won New Zealand (beat Kathy Harter and Betty Stove) and Holland (beat Kora Schediwy -I don't remember her!! Just looked her up: the German No.5- and Christina Sandberg). She also won at Melbourne (beat Winnie Shaw and Margaret Court), perhaps the biggest win outside the Slams. So perhaps not quite as consistently good as Billie Jean that year, and with fewer quality wins( she also lost to Court a handful of times, as well as Durr and Heldman twice each, Virginia Wade, and Patti Hogan) - but I still feel as if the two Slams trump King's record.
And let's not forget that she beat Billie Jean King and Margaret Court back-to-back to win that Wimbledon title in 1971- not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination- even King's!
 
#21 ·
Margaret Court's supporters - and the lady herself - are aways very quick to point out that she was pregnant while playing that Wimbledon final, and attribute the loss to that. When I was looking up Evonne's record earlier today I was surprised to see ALL the top women, including Court, played the Rothmans North of England championship AFTER Wimbledon. Court beat Julie Heldman in the Quarter-Finals before losing 6-2 7-5 to Billie Jean in the semis. (Evonne was elevated to second seed after her Wimbledon triumph but lost to Patti Hogan in the Quarters.)
 
#22 ·
Declan said:
Margaret Court's supporters - and the lady herself - are aways very quick to point out that she was pregnant while playing that Wimbledon final, and attribute the loss to that. When I was looking up Evonne's record earlier today I was surprised to see ALL the top women, including Court, played the Rothmans North of England championship AFTER Wimbledon. Court beat Julie Heldman in the Quarter-Finals before losing 6-2 7-5 to Billie Jean in the semis. (Evonne was elevated to second seed after her Wimbledon triumph but lost to Patti Hogan in the Quarters.)
I agree with you Declan, It's funny that the excuses come out when she lost; however, when she beat the other top players no excuse at all!
 
#23 ·
Patti Hogan? Jeesh. Evonne must have been celebrating a little too much after the Wimby win.

I think the fact that Evonne made the finals of all three slams she played, winning two put her in the top spot, period. BJK probably should have been ranked 2, not 3.
 
#24 ·
Declan said:
Margaret Court's supporters - and the lady herself - are aways very quick to point out that she was pregnant while playing that Wimbledon final, and attribute the loss to that. When I was looking up Evonne's record earlier today I was surprised to see ALL the top women, including Court, played the Rothmans North of England championship AFTER Wimbledon. Court beat Julie Heldman in the Quarter-Finals before losing 6-2 7-5 to Billie Jean in the semis. (Evonne was elevated to second seed after her Wimbledon triumph but lost to Patti Hogan in the Quarters.)
The same could be said of any player's supporters- naturally they are going to see things through rose coloured glasses when viewing the record books. Billie Jean King is Billie Jean King's greatest supporter, and the chief mastermind behind what is now viewed as "the history of women's tennis". Bud Collins has, on rare occasions, pointed out conflicting historical fact directly attributable to Billie Jean and/or her WTA coterie, and it's one of the reasons you rarely see them together in the commentary booth. He can deal with the clay minds of Evert and Austin- who need the feed in their ear to be able to present their views on the history of the sport, however Billie Jean needs no such feed- she has always had an agenda, and has never hesitated to grasp any opportunity to forward it.

P.S.- Margaret Court lost the finals of the Singles, Doubles, and Mixed at Wimbledon in 1971. I'd say her timing definitely was off. She was fit, and she played, and lost. It's okay (whether you're a fan or not) to suggest this may be the reason. It's not as if she found she was pregnant before Wimbledon, and chose to abort the fetus in order to compete... :eek:
 
#25 ·
alfajeffster said:
The same could be said of any player's supporters- naturally they are going to see things through rose coloured glasses when viewing the record books. Billie Jean King is Billie Jean King's greatest supporter, and the chief mastermind behind what is now viewed as "the history of women's tennis". Bud Collins has, on rare occasions, pointed out conflicting historical fact directly attributable to Billie Jean and/or her WTA coterie, and it's one of the reasons you rarely see them together in the commentary booth. He can deal with the clay minds of Evert and Austin- who need the feed in their ear to be able to present their views on the history of the sport, however Billie Jean needs no such feed- she has always had an agenda, and has never hesitated to grasp any opportunity to forward it.

P.S.- Margaret Court lost the finals of the Singles, Doubles, and Mixed at Wimbledon in 1971. I'd say her timing definitely was off. She was fit, and she played, and lost. It's okay (whether you're a fan or not) to suggest this may be the reason. It's not as if she found she was pregnant before Wimbledon, and chose to abort the fetus in order to compete... :eek:
Isn't it funny that her timing was good enough to get to the three finals that year! Her timing must have suddenly evaporated in the finals.
 
#26 ·
macn said:
Isn't it funny that her timing was good enough to get to the three finals that year! Her timing must have suddenly evaporated in the finals.
Morning sickness, you know? :lol: Alright, I concede, if you go out there and play, you're fit. That's the Aussie credo isn't it? In Margaret's absence from the tour after Wimbledon, the door opened wide for Billie Jean King to play the best tennis of her career. She should be thankful she had that opportunity!
 
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