Talk:Billie Jean King

Archived 2003–2015

Just a note that 2003–2015 has been archived. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:42, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Good Article goal

With a new movie coming out about King's life, this seems like a great opportunity to improve this article and hopefully push it towards Good Article status. Anyone is welcome to participate. Below are some of my observations about what could be improved in this article as a jumping off point.

• Find sources --all non obvious facts should be sourced. This article has a lot of facts which are currently not sourced.
• Remove scores --per peer review, scores should be removed from the body of the article unless they are a record
• Make prose less list like --a few early career sections, other activities, and awards are very list like. The prose could be refined.
• Trim excess or repetitive details
• Improve cohesiveness of the article
• Improve headings
• remove/paraphrase block quotes--one or two block quotes would be fine but the article relies on them very heavily.

Please feel free to add any thoughts. Knope7 (talk) 16:58, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I've condensed the personal life section, removing all but one of the block quotes. Perhaps that last block quote can be paraphrased, but I'll leave it for now to see if there are other opinions.

I'm also drafting the early part of her career here. I think for early years its probably easier to not go year by year. I'm also removing mentions of some specific regional tournaments that do not appear significant in part because there is an article devoted to her statistics. Knope7 (talk) 03:36, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Update: I have created an "In popular culture" section drawing on some things already in the article and adding a few others. Playing style and personality should probably be rewritten eliminating the quotes. If anyone is looking to jump in and do some writing, that could be a good section for someone to pick up. Sourcing for that should be easy as a lot of the sources used elsewhere in the article describe King's personality too.

Sourcing remains an issue, and is another great area for other editors to get involved.

I'm also currently considering moving the first few paragraphs of "Career," which talks about some of King's biggest career achievements and turning it into a "legacy" section. I'm not always fond of legacy sections or living people but I do think moving the material into some sort of achievement section later in the article would help the flow from Early life into Early career. Knope7 (talk) 20:21, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and combined a few of the early years of King's career into a shorter overview. I think this makes sense as it allows for more focus on the peak of her career and avoids devolving into a list of tournaments and their results. I am not opposed to adding back some of the detail, particularly if sourced, so please feel free to add if you think anything important is missing. Knope7 (talk) 20:21, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi! I definitely agree with improving the headings. I think that we should add an "Influence" or "Activism" heading to ensure that King's activism within tennis and sports in general isn't overlooked. I also agree that in general, the article could be condensed a bit more. I love to see discussion within this article as I care a lot about the sport! AL8102 (talk) 13:25, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Citations

Hello fellow Wikipedians

I refer you to footnotes 181 & 182 which I have not cited properly. I endeavoured to do this, but then the links of the articles disappeared. Can you improve the citations please, according to the rules?Andrew Rabel (talk) 10:31, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Interview with King on National Public Radio's Fresh Air

King offers some insights as tho why she worked for women's equality in tennis. Some of this should be included in the article. She says that when she was 12 she decided that if she became the best tennis player she would work for change in the sport.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2021/08/21/1029711660/fresh-air-for-aug-21-2021-billie-jean-king-kenan-thompson?showDate=2021-08-21

Removal of longstanding info on title numbers

I'm at a loss on why one of Kings most vital stats is being removed. It has been here for well over a decade, is used by the WTA and Tennis Hall of fame. I'm talking about the removal by a new editor of "King won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. Why on earth would this be removed? The Tennis Hall of Fame talks of the feat extensively! The [www.wtatennis.com/players/110100/billie-jean-king#bio WTA tells of it] in her bio section. It heads the Billie Jean King website. The History Channel looks at it as important.

We seem to have a newer editor who is also editing as an anon IP removing it as useless wording that no one cares about. Baloney! It's a huge part of her persona that is sourced everywhere. The Tennis Hall of Fame tells of her 20 Wimbledon titles too. Those weren't just in singles... they are a total of all her Major titles there. I have no idea why anyone would remove these accomplishments from here... and also from the Serena Williams article. It is supposed to be their job to bring it to talk if someone disagrees with their removal of longstanding consensus. They may not realize that fact even though I've explained it to them over and over... so here we are. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of More Information

I think that this article would be much more developed and inclusive of prevalent issues if it went more into depth of BJK’s influence on female athletes as the first openly gay female athlete. This is lightly included at the very end of the article, but would benefit the article if it was included earlier, and depicted the impact that it had on her influence to her fanbase, while also delving into the difficulties on her at that time. Additionally, this article could include more recent information, such as BJK’s interviews and more first-hand sources. Overall, this article holds a lot of information, but avoids some of the heavier topics on issues that are more prevalent today. In simply including this, in a non-biased and neutral way while adhering to Wikipedia’s guidelines, would enhance the notability, credibility, and overall relevance of this article. Anastasia.barr (talk) 14:17, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

New photo

I know many people would consider the photo on the infobox of this article to be fine, but it is 14 years old so it is not a faithful depiction of how Billie Jean King looks like today There a some more recent photos of her on Wikimedia Commons and my suggestion is that we should change to one of these

File:Bilie Jean King in 2019 (cropped).jpg

File:Kamala Harris and BIllie Jean King (cropped).jpg

File: Billie Jean King in 2024.jpg

I always prefer to have the most recent picture of an article's subject but not when the quality is really bad and I know many don't agree with this, even though I think this issue should be discussed

Haddad Maia fan (talk) 00:11, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Technical Writing

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2026 and 16 May 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Adroz2380 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Firrick (talk) 21:23, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Tam O'Shaughnessy

In the Tam O'Shaughnessy article is says she was coached by Billie Jean King. Shouldn't mention of that be made in this article? Abductive (reasoning) 08:21, 26 May 2026 (UTC)