Show Them What You’ve Got

When Billie Jean King walked into the Houston Astrodome in 1973, she wasn’t just walking onto a tennis court — she was walking into history.

Thirty thousand people filled the seats. Ninety million more watched on TV. But they weren’t there just for tennis. They were there to see if a woman could truly stand equal to a man.

Bobby Riggs, 55, loud, cocky, and self-proclaimed “male chauvinist pig,” had spent months taunting her. “Women belong in the kitchen, not the court,” he said, smirking into cameras and wearing pig-emblazoned shirts for attention.

To the public, it was entertainment. To Billie Jean, it was a reckoning. “If I lose,” she said, “it’ll set women back fifty years.”

She didn’t lose. She dismantled him — point by point, serve by serve — with grace sharper than any insult he’d thrown her way. When the last ball hit the court, and she’d won 6–4, 6–3, 6–3, Riggs laughed and said, “She was too good.” And Billie Jean just smiled, shook his hand, and whispered, “Thank you, Bobby.”

Then she looked up at the women in the stands, holding their daughters high. “I wanted them to see it,” she said later. “To know they never had to apologize for wanting more.”

She didn’t just win a tennis match. She rewrote what victory looked like — not loud, not cruel, but undeniable.

As I was researching her for my Women Who Observe series, she reminded me of one of my dad’s favorite stories.

Billie only picked up tennis because she realized it offered more opportunities for women than softball did. I understood that even as a teenager — I picked golf for the same reason. It was only the second year my high school had a girls golf team, still a newer sport for women at the time.

I was a freshman, small for my age, and just happy to be out there playing with my dad on vacation at Disney World. They paired us with two men who clearly weren’t thrilled about being stuck with this tiny little girl tagging along with her dad. The men and my father all hit from the men’s tee, and then our new friends sat in their cart waiting for me to hit from the ladies’ tee.

As my dad walked back to the cart, I took out my driver. He whispered to me, “Show them what you’ve got.”

So I hit from the men’s tee — and outdrove them both.

My dad claims they suddenly needed to know everything about me, like they’d just met the next phenom. The only thing I actually remember about that day is him whispering those words, but I still love seeing the pride on his face every time he tells the story.

It’s one of the best feelings in the world — being underestimated, and then quietly proving them wrong.

Billie Jean King didn’t just change tennis — she changed how the world measures worth.

She was the daughter of a firefighter and a homemaker, a kid who bought her first used racket with eight dollars she earned cutting lawns. When she walked onto the court, she wasn’t just an athlete; she was a strategist, a student of systems, and a fighter for fairness.

She founded the Women’s Tennis Association, the Women’s Sports Foundation, and pushed until the U.S. Open became the first major tournament to offer equal prize money. She took the insults, the headlines, and the pressure, and turned them into progress — not just for herself, but for every woman who would ever walk into a room, boardroom, or court and refuse to apologize for being there.

Even after her career, she kept advocating — for gender equality, for LGBTQ+ rights, for the idea that leadership looks like inclusion. She still shows up, still speaks up, still proves that courage doesn’t retire.

And maybe her greatest lesson is this: pressure isn’t the enemy — it’s the proof that you’re doing something that matters.

“Pressure is a privilege.” — Billie Jean King