First she fought to make tennis a professional sport. Then she fought the inequities of women by forming a league of their own. After that she shut the mouths of every male chauvinist pig by defeating Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome.

She opened a door to women athletes throughtout the world. And after being outed by a jealous lover, she threw herself into GLBT politics, becoming an inspiration to athletes of all sexual preferences.

But it isn’t just the athletes who have benefit from her ever generous heart. Just ask the senior citizens at the RainbowVision retirement center in Palm Beach, Florida.

The winner of 39 grand slam tennis titles has designed a tennis and fitness center for the first GLBT retirement center approved by the city of Palm Beach.

Another good reason to appreciate Billie Jean King. She cares a lot for all kinds of people, young and old, able and disabled, GLBT or straight. She cares about them all. An enormous gift from such an enormous woman.

And what she did was a good thing. Because not everybody cares about everybody, which is a sad thing. If any one person out there, gay or srtaight, sports fan or not, needs a role model to look up to, look up to Billie Jean King. She’s awesome.