Billie Jean King: If you look at my life, there’s no way you couldn’t be at least somewhat spiritual. There’s no way. It was in— It’s like you feel like it was in the stars. It was in the— It was— Look at— Just look how I thought as a child. I mean, it hasn’t changed that much either, I guess. Um, I think my— I think my brother and I got really lucky with our parents. They never asked us if we won. And I still think that this is one of the strongest messages I can send to every parent. Don’t ask your child if they won. Don’t say it. Like Evonne Goolagong’s a perfect example. She’s indigenous Australian. Um, her mother would always say to her, “Have a lovely day.” She’d come home after her match and she’d say, “Did you have a lovely day?” She was also number one in the world. You talk to number ones, I think they got really lucky usually with the people around them, their parents or whoever raised them. Um, they can either work at the opposite or with them, but like my— I would go crazy when I lost. I— I mean, I— my brother and I are not sweet little quiet. No, we’re like— I said, “I can’t believe I lost.” And ranting and raving. My dad goes, “Hold on. Hold on. I’m just gonna ask you one question. Did you try your— your very best?” I go, “Of course I tried my best.” He said, “That’s good enough.” He said, “You might have to ask yourself, are you practicing enough? Or maybe you’re practicing too much?” “Too much?” “Yeah, you’ve burned yourself out. Maybe.” “I don’t— Yes, you have to ask yourself these questions.”
But if you think about my dad, what he did is he helped me with delayed gratification. He wouldn’t buy the first tennis racket I want— wanted, right? Well, go back to when I was three years old. I wanted a baseball bat. And he says, “No, I want to know if you really love it or not.” So he took a 2×4 and cut out a paddle for me. He says, “And I’ll pitch to you every day, whatever, whenever I’m home.” As a firefighter is home every other day, which is another really helpful thing. So I go, “Okay.” So I would hit for three hours in a row. My poor guy— dad. But look at— my dad would stay there for three hours with his children. And so with me— my brother hadn’t been born yet. So anyway, I’m hitting. I’m hitting every day. My poor dad. I’m like, “Daddy, daddy, let’s go play. Let’s go play.” So finally he stops. He says, “You know what? I can see you love it. I will buy you a baseball bat now.” But my dad was teaching me, and I don’t know if he realized it, but he really taught us delayed gratification. Like when you want to be the number one in the world, there’s a lot of delayed gratification. A lot. And that’s if you even are fortunate enough to, to be able to be up at number one. What about the kids that never make it to number one? Maybe the number 100’s their best. That’s great. It’s— everyone’s different. We’ve all been given different abilities. We’ve had different circumstances. I got really lucky. And Reverend Bob Richards was one of the lucky parts of my, my path.