Although she doesn’t play tennis quite as much as she once did, former World No. 1 tennis player and social activist Billie Jean King knows the importance of staying busy as you get older.
“I want to live, I don’t want to just sit around and wait,” King said in an interview with Blank Slate Media. “I don’t care what age, you want to have purpose to your life just like you would at any other age.”
The tennis legend spoke at Atria Cutter Mill senior living facility in Great Neck as Atria’s active aging ambassador on Tuesday to highlight to both residents and staff how important it is to maintain an active lifestyle as one gets older.
For about three years, King has been traveling to different Atrias across the country to share life experiences with Atria residents and staff.
During her career, King won 39 Grand Slam tennis titles and in 1973 won what was called the “Battle of the Sexes” in which King defeated Bobby Riggs, a 55-year-old former top male player who said he could still defeat the best women players of the day.
The first openly gay well-known athlete, King has also been an advocate for both L.G.B.T.Q. and women’s rights.
Though she can’t bend her knee quite as well as she used to after an operation, she said she still exercises every day.
As one gets older, King said, one has to adapt to what your body can handle. With all her other commitments, King said she can only play tennis about three times a year now.
King’s connection to Atria runs deep — she lived in Atria West 86 in Manhattan’s Upper West Side for five months while the mother of her partner, former professional tennis player Ilana Kloss, lived as a resident there for about three years before her death, King said.
“We went looking in New York City and went some other places,” King said. “We finally ended up going [to Atria West 86] and I said ‘now we’re cooking.’”
While living at the Atria, she said, she began talking to people about doing something to help Atria residents.
Eventually the idea to become the Atria’s Active Aging ambassador came about, and she began visiting the complexes across the country.
“I’m much more connected to [the residents] than just visiting them,” King said. “I know their experience by living there and going through the routine.”
She said Atria Senior Living complexes are very clean, have good food and have a staff that really cares for the residents. Atria complexes have kitchens in the private rooms, rehabilitation and exercise facilities, salons, libraries and a staff that will sometimes take residents to the theater or to go shopping, King said.
Atria staff, King said, aren’t people who wake up just to go to work every day because it is their job — they come to work because it is their calling. The positive relationship residents have with Atria staff was one of the reasons Kloss’ mother enjoyed her time at the Atria.
“We would be in the dining room and she would say ‘oh I like this waiter,’” King said of Kloss’ mother.
King also brings Atria residents to tennis matches whenever she can as well, she said.
But the most important thing for Atria residents, King said, is connecting to others, whether that be other Atria residents or younger people they bring in to talk to the residents.
“Older people need younger people, and younger people need older people,” King said. “I always loved hanging out with older people, you learned so much from them. When I was a player I would purposely talk to older players, they had the funniest stories — it’s mentoring without realizing it.”
Spending time with people out of your age group, King said, is much more interesting than hanging out with only people the same age as you.
“Every generation has talked about connecting with other human beings,” King said. “With millennials, because of technology, they are able to mobilize much faster.”
King is very interested in “millennials” — the group of people born roughly between the early 1980’s and early 2000’s.
Kings’ parents, Bill and Betty Moffitt, could always pay their bills because they were much more risk averse, King said, than people now. King said millennials are faced with more challenges however, including a lack of jobs and a low minimum wage.
Parents of millennials, King said, are much more involved in their childrens’ lives than her parents were.
Of all the professional matches that King played, she said, her mother only saw one at the 1968 Wimbledon Championships where she won the women’s singles and doubles titles.
When King’s mother would take her to matches as a child, King said, she wouldn’t watch the match — she would talk to other parents.
Because of the lack of parental pressure, King said she and her brother — former pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays Randy Moffitt — liked to put pressure on themselves, making them better athletes.
“I’m convinced he and I really loved pressure because they didn’t put any on us,” King said.
But by 2025, King said, 75 percent of the work force will be made of millennials.
She said there is such a disconnect between millennials and older generations, that the older generation of employers haven’t yet figured out how to effectively use millennials.
She said when she asks older people about millennials, they tend to roll their eyes.
“We have to know how they think, how are you going to get the most out of them,” King said.
Though long retired from tennis and the public spotlight that surrounded her in the 1960s and 1970s, King said she doesn’t forget her influence as a social activist.
After concerns were raised about L.G.B.T.Q. rights in Russia around the time of the 2014 Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia, President Barack Obama appointed King and openly gay American ice hockey player Caitlin Cahow to represent the United States. After her mother’s health deteriorated, King was forced to drop out.
King’s mother Betty died Feb. 7, 2014 — the first day of the Winter Olympics.
King did get to attend the final two days of the Olympics, but she said she was very nervous as an openly gay woman in an environment hostile to the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
“It was pretty nerve wracking,” King said. “I was hyper-vigilant, but we had unbelievable security.”
King said she was actually more worried about the security of L.G.B.T.Q. people in other parts of Russia during the Olympics, as all the security was focused on Sochi.
Though she was constantly surrounded by security and escorted in an armored van, King said, it was still difficult to see so many L.G.B.T.Q. Russians so obviously scared.
On the night of the closing ceremonies, King said she met an 18-year-old Russian boy disowned by his family who was constantly bullied because he was gay.
Through the efforts of various U.S. officials, King said, the boy is now living in the United States.
