Billie Jean King: First of all, my dad and mom wouldn’t get me racket. They said I had to figure it out. So, I went to the neighbors and pleaded with them, and they were very sweet to me. They gave me quarters, dimes, nickels. I had a mason jar up in the cupboard. I put all my money in. I had $8.29, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I’m just jumping up and down: I have to get my racket! And my dad says, “Okay, we’ll take you now.” That’s good. We figured out how to do it. That’s very good. And so we went to Brown Sporting Goods in Long Beach, and I got my first racket, and I chose it because it was purple, and I love the color, you know — violets, purples. My mother loves it. Um, and so the, the handle, the strings, were all purple. Very low-end racket, you know. Wasn’t very high quality. Didn’t matter. I thought it was beautiful. Slept with it.