Bobby Riggs Created Quite A Racket

Everywhere women and girls gather to play organized sports around this country today, they should observe a moment of silence or lower the flag to half-staff in respect for the reluctant father of women’s sports, who died Wednesday.

For a macho hustler who got hustled by a woman named King more than 20 years ago, and forced men everywhere to take a closer look at the abilities of female athletes.

For a man’s man who put the pompous face of male chauvinism on display for the world to see - and laugh at.

For a little guy named Bobby Riggs, who shot his mouth off back in 1973 and couldn’t back it up.

If you’ve got a little gray in your hair, or no hair, you probably remember what life was like back in those dark ages when it came to women’s sports. Not like it is today.

Watching women play sports was interesting, even entertaining at times. A nice little diversion until the real athletes, men, took to the courts, courses and fields of this country to do the heavy sweating.

We - read that to mean most men - were still hung up on our ‘50s and ‘60s school days when we’d walk by the volleyball or badminton courts, and wave to the girls on our way to the football field, baseball diamond or basketball court - where the real sports action was taking place.

“Don’t break a nail or work up a sweat,” we’d yell, laughing like the macho pigs we were, on our way back to the showers to snap towels and jock straps at each other’s butts.

The stereotype that women were a big cut below men when it came to athletic ability began slowly breaking down as the ‘70s dawned, but neither side was breaking ranks to prove the point.

The boys still played with boys - the girls still played with girls.

Then, Bobby Riggs opened his mouth, and Billie Jean King shut it - beating the former U.S. Open and Wimbledon champ in straight sets in the much hyped “Battle of the Sexes.”

Granted, he was 55 and she was 29, but the smart money figured even an old man was too strong for a little woman.

The smart money was wrong.

In bars and locker rooms across this country, guys with potbellies and stale memories cried in their beers, too depressed even to snap towels and jock straps at each other.

The end of an era was approaching and they knew it, but couldn’t admit it. Women were flexing their athletic muscles and demanding opportunities. There was no looking back.

“Billie Jean just caught me on a bad day,” Riggs would say later, sounding like a punch-drunk fighter.

That was hurt pride talking because she could have beaten him any day of the week. Her and a lot of other women. They were that good.

But the macho hustler Riggs and a lot of other men just wouldn’t let themselves believe it - until the night Riggs came to L.A. a few years later and got beaten up by a candy striper.

Her name was Tracy Austin and she would go on to become the No. 1-ranked woman’s tennis player in the world before injuries ended her career prematurely.

But on this night she was just a scared 14-year-old girl who stood about 4 feet and a few inches tall, weighed about 80 pounds, and sat on a couch with her mother in the Forum Club, her feet dangling a few inches above the floor.

“Take it easy on the kid tonight,” a couple of us macho tennis writers told Bobby, laughing at the little squirt in the corner wearing a candy-striped tennis dress.

Bobby winked, strutted out onto the court, and proceeded to get his brains knocked out again - this time by a little girl wearing braces.

Game, set and match, ladies.

Later on, around the bar, Bobby licked his wounds. He’d won Wimbledon and three U.S. Opens, he said. He’d been ranked No. 1 in the world.

“But when it’s all said and done, I’ll probably be remembered most as the guy who did more for women’s tennis than any woman,” Bobby said.

Well, it’s all said and done. He died Wednesday at age 77 of prostate cancer.

Reading his obits in the newspapers and the tributes his peers were paying Bobby Thursday, I think his legacy is being shortchanged. Bobby even wound up shortchanging himself, and he seldom did that.

Now that it’s all said and done, none of this was about tennis. It was about equality and respect between the sexes.

It was about men like me finally waking up and giving our daughters the same athletic opportunities and advantages we give our sons.

That’s the legacy left behind by a little hustler who got hustled by a woman named King.

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