Billie Jean King’s Long Beach Roots
Published to LA Times on September 24, 2019
Long before the barrier-breaking tennis legend won 39 major titles, fought for women’s equality in sports or defeated Bobby Riggs (and male chauvinism) at the fabled “battle of the sexes,” Billie Jean King was a Long Beach kid who grew up learning to play the game on city courts in the mid-1950s. Her parents, Bill and Betty Moffitt, both of whom are deceased, lived at the same house on West 36th Street for more than 40 years. King was still a senior at Long Beach’s Poly High School when she won her first Wimbledon doubles title in 1961. She was 17 at the time.