Got the chance to talk to Billie Jean King last night at the Women's Sports Foundation awards gala named after her: The Billies! Even though the past year has been an absolute lovefest directed toward Billie Jean, she remains focused on the future.
The first thing she talked to me about was how excited she is that the United States Tennis Assn. is finally getting behind the Team Tennis concept that she has been passionately promoting for decades.
"I've been trying to sell it as a team sport for, how old am I? 63? For 45 years. The USTA for the first time is promoting tennis as a team sport with the kids."
But the team tennis dream is only one of the many she has been working on all these years. One of the others is equal prize money at all the grand slam tournaments. It is only a few months ago that Wimbledon fnally decided to join longtime equal prize money tourneys U.S. Open and Australian Open. The French Open made the move last year.
"We're finished! We're done! Another one off the list!" Billie Jean said. "If you read over history, it goes by really fast if you read it. But if you live it, it goes really slow. Like equal prize money at the majors? We started worrying about that in 1968. When I won Wimbledon in '68, I got 750 pounds and Rod Laver got 2,000 so it started right there."

I could not resist asking Billie Jean about the thunderous reception she got a few months ago at New York's fashion week when she upstaged everyone, including First Lady Laura Bush, when she came out in a red pantsuit and sneakers to the sounds of Michael Jackson's hit "Billie Jean." She got the biggest applause of anyone at the event.
"It's because I'm a jock baby! I'm real baby! I look like other people, I'm not skinny."

Then I asked kind of a stupid question: 'So how'd you get Elton to come perform tonight?"
"He did last year too!" BJK said. "How did I get him? He's a FRIEND! And World Team Tennis has raised over $9 billion for its Elton John AIDS Foundation."
I had to know what it was like to be at Elton's 60th birthday celebration a few weeks back: "I was at the party and the concert. Awesome. It was so much fun."
Then it was time to try and get Billie Jean to reflect on all the attention that has been coming her way over the past year.
Me: "You're a rock star!"
BJK: "Noooooooo. I'm not finished yet. I'm always striving to help. But tonight is really to celebrate the excellence in media coverage of women's sports. We don't get a lot of it but Rutgers has done a nice job the last few days. You see how great women athletes are. They were absolutely a great example of the things sports teaches you, the lessons in life, how to be a leader and all the great things that can come."