2 0
2 145teammates, who were about to sign another lowball con-
tract. But she told them what King had said: that they
needed to leverage their success and demand more, both
in wages and investment in the sport. That’s how the
USWNT has gone from those $10 per diems to six-figure
salaries to suing the federation for equal pay.
“In women’s sports, for so long, you were told to shut up
and just be grateful,” Foudy says. “And then we stopped
shutting up, in large part because Billie’s like, No, it’s
on you. You make the change. You as players demand bet-
ter....She really was the catalyst.”
In early 2019, King gave similar advice to Coyne Schofield
and her colleagues. Speaking on a conference call, she urged
200 women’s hockey players to stick together as one. It was
not all that different from the message King had delivered in
a hotel ballroom in 1973, the week before Wimbledon, when
she got 65 of her peers to vote unanimously to create theWomen’s Tennis Association, uniting
them in one tour that in 2019 awarded
$179 million in prize money. (“I was in
the room,” Kloss recalls, “and all I knew
was that if it was good enough for her,
it was certainly good enough for us.”)
The PWHPA started in May 2019
with no structure and no bank account.
But not unlike the Virginia Slims cir-
cuit, it has organized barnstorming
tours and has secured financial backing,
including a $1 million sponsorship from
Secret Deodorant and support from
Billie Jean King Enterprises, an invest-
ment firm. Earlier this year the associa-
tion held the first women’s pro hockey
game at Madison Square Garden.
King addressed the players before the
puck dropped.
Like King in the 1970s, there are days
when Coyne Schofield, who is training
for a third Olympics, feels exhausted
both by the work she’s doing for the
future of the sport and by playing at
the highest level. But she thinks back
to the summer of 2019, when she and
four other hockey Olympians attended
the U.S. Open with King. They sat in
the Queens tennis center named for
King by the same organization that once
threatened her career. They saw the
equal crowds and equal prize money
for men and women, which King first
secured in 1973 by negotiating directly
with the tournament director and lining
up a sponsor to make up the difference.
“Everything is so equal and no one questions it, no one
thinks about it. That’s just how it is,” Coyne Schofield
says. “That was such a motivating moment, sitting in the
empire that Billie Jean built and knowing that we have
the opportunity to help create that in women’s hockey.”BILLIE JEAN KING HAS BEEN
fighting the same fights for most of her 78 years.
“That’s where I go back to Coretta,” she says, referenc-
ing the quote in her bathroom cabinet. “It never ends. But
each person hopefully helps. And allows a stepping stone.”
Kloss describes her wife as “a tree with thousands of
branches.” King wants to go everywhere, help everyone,
champion every worthwhile cause. Such as: After the
U.S. Open’s tennis complex was renamed for her in 2006, she
took steps to reduce its environmental footprint, and sinceSPORTSPERSON OF THE YEAR 2021“In women’s sports for so long, you
were told to shut up and just be
grateful,” Foudy says. “And then we
stopped shutting up, in large part
because Billie’s like, No, it’s on you.
YOU MAKE THE CHANGE.”