King Choice Is One of Credit Over Cash

There were at least two reasons to applaud the ceremony held here Monday night at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, one obvious and the other subtle.

The obvious was that Billie Jean King’s sport stood up and said thank you, in as public a way as possible, to someone who was a winner in her world and everybody else’s. In renaming the U.S. National Tennis Center in her name, tennis paid proper homage to King as a champion, not only of tennis but of women’s rights as well.

By implication, the U.S. Tennis Assn., which did this, said that it was nice to be a great player and win lots of titles, but that it was extraordinary to go on and stand for something that is right and honorable and has a ripple effect through society. Great players get lots of money and nice trophies. King gets her name on the front door.

Like her counterpart, Arthur Ashe, whose name is on the main stadium, King’s pedestal in the world of tennis -- make that the world of sports -- rises higher than most.

At the end of an emotional ceremony, in which King was praised by John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Venus Williams and Chris Evert and serenaded by Diana Ross, King told the packed stadium that she just couldn’t resist. She leaned forward into the microphone and bellowed, “Mi casa, su casa. My house is your house. This is our house.”

Then she took a victory lap, touching hands with people in the first row around the stadium.The subtle reason for applauding this is that, against all odds, the USTA did not take the money and run. Read this carefully. The USTA, a money-making machine that plays in the same league as other money-making machines that run pro football, basketball, baseball, golf, etc., and seem to relish each new opportunity to boost the bank account, took a pass. It just said no.

It had bricks and mortar and the ultimate brand. Put your name on the USTA National Tennis Center and stand back and watch as that name appears in newspapers and TV, on the Internet and the backside of 3 million kids’ tennis shorts. Write a big check, say for $6 million, its estimated worth, and all that is yours.

The USTA said no.

Shocking! Unheard of! Wonderful!

The man responsible for this business blunder is Franklin Johnson of Los Angeles, USTA president.

The USTA operates with a new president every two years, somebody who ascends through an organization of directors after many years of service and who, it seems, often departs as quietly as he or she arrived. Not Johnson, a former UCLA player, who was part of the Bruins’ NCAA tennis title team in 1956 and who won the boys’ 18 USTA National Hardcourts title in 1953.

He is a businessman who, as a longtime managing general partner of Price Waterhouse, oversaw the balloting and secrecy of the results for the Oscars and occasionally walked out on stage to hand the big star the big ballot.

“I did that for 21 years,” he said.

As a member of the USTA board, progressing toward his two-year reign at the top, Johnson looked like all the other “suits” who have moved mostly unnoticed through two years of cocktail parties and meetings.

Johnson has done a bit more. His legacy, when his term ends Dec. 31, will include at least two high-profile decisions.

First, he stepped up when the Indian Wells event, a Tennis Masters series tournament that is crucial to U.S. tennis prominence, was in financial trouble. The day after the story broke in March 2005, Johnson was on the record with his desire to have the USTA wade in with shovels and money.

It eventually did, committing, according to Johnson, “well north of $1 million with an option to own the entire event, if it comes to that.”

And then, there was the decision to name the tennis center after King.

“I think it started when we gave our Presidential Medal to Billie Jean,” he said, “and we had the feeling that we should do more, that because of all she has done for our sport and for women’s rights, we should honor her in some way at our tennis center.”

Johnson said that there had been discussion of naming the unnamed Grandstand Court after her, but that didn’t seem enough.

He also said that there had been discussion -- “about two minutes before we figured out that was dumb” -- to change the Louis Armstrong Court, previously the main court before the construction of the Ashe Court, to King’s name.

Soon, he said, the idea of a Billie Jean King nameplate on the whole place was put forth. And in three meetings, including one in May when Johnson asked for consideration but no vote, and then the recent one in July when he asked for a vote, it snowballed.

“The board vote in July was unanimous,” he said. “All 15 said yes.”

And the subject of all that money they were losing by not selling naming rights?

“That came up the first time this was talked about,” Johnson said. “It had even come up when we named the stadium for Arthur. We said no both times.”

So it was that, Monday night, with the King ceremony and Andre Agassi in his grand-finale tournament, tennis had one of those increasingly rare occasions when it was earning its way into big headlines and prime spots on the evening news.

On this night, a 63-year-old woman who began as a child named Billie Jean Moffit on the dusty public courts of Long Beach and went on to make a huge difference, got her due.

And for once, her name was bigger than the corporations who write the big checks.