King and Williams make a fine team

Billie Jean King thought she had stepped into a time warp Sunday when her plane landed at Long Beach Airport.

“It actually has not changed at all, since I was a kid in the ‘50s,” said King, who grew up in Long Beach as Billie Jean Moffitt and learned to swing a tennis racket in the city’s parks.

“There are no more jackrabbits running around out at the airport, though. I went to Long Beach Poly. We were the Jackrabbits. I always look for jackrabbits out the window.”

She doesn’t visit as often as she’d like, living in New York and being immersed in any of a dozen projects at any moment. But ever the tennis evangelist and equal-rights advocate, she made a point of traveling here to watch Venus Williams lead the Philadelphia Freedoms to a 21-12 World TeamTennis victory over the Newport Beach Breakers on Sunday.

If King was the loudest fan in the stadium, no one in the crowd of 1,874 should have been surprised.

“I looooooove tennis and I love TeamTennis,” she said at a news conference, leaning into a microphone in case her sentiments weren’t clear.

Her affection is equally strong for Lynwood-born Williams, whom she first met at a WTT clinic in Long Beach. Although King, 63, joked that her generation “can’t imagine all the zeroes” in the paychecks earned by Williams and other modern players, King begrudges them nothing.

“I love the zeroes. I love the fact they make so much money,” said King, the co-founder of WTT and a part-owner of the Philadelphia and Delaware teams.

“This is our vision.”

Williams is the embodiment of the possibilities King and eight other women had in mind when they each signed $1 contracts and started a women’s professional tennis tour in 1970.

If they didn’t foresee the precise details, Williams is, nonetheless, what they hoped for: a strong, powerful female athlete whose abilities are admired as much as any man’s -- and whose work is as well-compensated as men’s is.

Only a few weeks ago, after she won her fourth Wimbledon title -- perhaps her most unlikely, as the No. 23-seeded player -- Williams devoted part of her post-match speech to thanking King for working toward equal prize money at major tournaments. Without King and Althea Gibson before her, the path for Williams and so many others would have been more perilous, if not impassable.

“There were so many emotions in that moment, plus Billie Jean was sitting right there,” Williams said. “It was just a nice moment for us and for women’s tennis and for everyone.”

Having King in her corner, she said, is invaluable.

“No one loves tennis more than Billie,” Williams said. “She has a passion for it and she lives and breathes it and she’s done so much for tennis, so it’s good to know that she’s also supportive of me. And she always has great advice.”

Williams on Sunday teamed in doubles with Lisa Raymond and in mixed doubles with Daniel Nestor, and played singles against Michaela Pastikova, all before an audience well short of the millions who watched her win her sixth Grand Slam title at Wimbledon. But being here and embracing WTT’s team-oriented emphasis was important to her in many ways, especially as a tribute to a woman whose impact on the sociological aspects of sports cannot be quantified.

“She’s done so much and won so many. It’s definitely hard to match,” Williams said of King.

“It’s not like I’m going to go out and start a tour. She’s already done it. So she’s laid the groundwork.”

That groundwork was built upon great effort and even greater hope. King had to fight sexism every step of the way; a few years ago, finally watching a tape of her 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” against Bobby Riggs, she was horrified that announcer Howard Cosell said more about her appearance than her achievements.

Every female athlete owes her a greater debt than they know.

“We used to sit around and talk about this. This was our vision,” King said.

“We wanted tennis to be worldwide ... that any little girl born in this world, if she really wanted to be a professional tennis player and if she was good enough, there was a place for her to play. And that wasn’t available before my generation.”

Williams, she said, “gets it,” meaning that Williams appreciates the struggles of her predecessors and is eager to make it easier for those who follow. WTT helps her further that goal by conducting clinics for kids, giving many their first racket and first contact with the sport.

“She’s always connected then and now better than most. She always had an appreciation for history compared to a lot of players,” King said.

When they talked during Fed Cup matches, “you could tell she was getting it. She’s evolved as a human being. She’s older now. She’s not a young teenager anymore. She’s grown up. She’s a woman. She has a mind of her own. God knows she has enough financial security to be happy.

“We’re very pleased to have her.”

And lucky, too, that Williams’ social conscience is as good as her forehand on grass. Thanks to her, King’s vision will only grow stronger.