In 1973, married with two school-age children, I was a full-time nontraditional student at Rochester Community College in Rochester, Minn. when tennis champion Billie Jean King smacked down Bobby Riggs in three straight matches. After class that day, I asked Dr. Mary Goette, my psychology professor, what she thought of King’s defeat of her male challenger. Dr. Goette said with a smile, “Well, we’ve always known that women were smarter than men, now we know they are better athletes, too.”
On Wednesday, Aug. 12, King achieved another victory over sexism in her smack down of President Obama’s inaccurate report of her stats when presenting her with the Medal of Freedom. I had to chuckle reading Politico’s account of King’s response in which she brushes off Obama’s mistakes as “cute” and “sweet.” In effect, King good-naturedly reverses the incident in Detroit when Candidate Obama replied to a question by a female reporter with, “Hold on a minute, Sweetie.”
Carol Lee reports:
“They didn’t get any of my facts right,” King lightheartedly noted afterward. “Did you see all the – how many titles I won? I was cracking up.”
There’s more:
Asked what Obama got wrong, she {King} said, “Well the Grand Slam’s at 39 not at 12.”
“That’s not what’s important,” she {King} explained. So when Obama got it wrong, “I thought even was more cute...I go, ‘Oh that’s really sweet.’ Like, just move on, get off the tennis stuff. Tennis was a platform.”
My former psychology professor, Dr. Goette, was right: Billie Jean King continues to demonstrate today that women are both smarter than men and better athletes.
Watch the video of Carol Lee’s interview with King here.
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