Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women's Sports
In 1973, Billie Jean King, then the best female tennis player in the world, defeated fiftysomething Bobby Riggs before a national television audience in the so-called Battle of the Sexes. It was a symbolic victory and proved to be the catalyst for a tremendous growth spurt in women�s competitive sports. By the late seventies, women�s participation in high-school and intercollegiate sports had skyrocketed. Ware, a scholar specializing in women�s history, presents both a biography of King and a chronological history of women�s sports. She smoothly segues between chapters on King and chapters on the sociological landscape in which women compete. The King chapters are fascinating, particularly Ware�s exploration of King�s commitment to advancing women�s tennis, but the best parts of the book deal with the larger issues of sports, especially the legislative battles to pass Title IX (guaranteeing equality in funding women�s intercollegiate sports) and the struggle to implement it. An extraordinarily illuminating account of the history of women�s sports. --Wes Lukowsky