It’s 2026, and Billie Jean King is still the coolest girl in the room. When I walk into an unassuming Midtown studio for her photo shoot with adidas, she’s rocking one of the brand’s iconic tracksuits paired with a hoodie underneath. A string of pearls rests between the sweatshirt and jacket (that has her face on it, I might add), and good lord, it’s the flyest thing I’ve seen all week. It’s mid-April, but I make a mental note to re-create the look come fall.
This isn’t the first time the sports legend has influenced me or any girl who has benefited from organized sports and athletics in her lifetime. Perhaps the earliest moment was well before I was even conceived, when she argued in favor of Title IX in 1972 before it became law.
“I told them that sports do the same thing for women as men: It helps us with character, with leadership, and with health,” says Billie Jean of her advocacy during that time. “Title IX is the reason every woman has the opportunity today. Did you get an athletic scholarship?” she asks, flipping the interview on me. We’re sitting at a table in the photo studio, rolling a blue tennis ball back and forth across it. I tell her I did, accomplishing a goal I set for myself when I was a little girl of playing Division I basketball at my dream university. “That’s the reason,” she responds. “They left the word ‘activity’ in [the statute], and it’s the reason we have women’s sports.”
In many ways, so is she.
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