Chris Dufresne writes a clever article on the 50 'coolest' athletes from Southern California. Strange that he omits Serena Williams but he does have 4 other tennis legends on his list. The highest ranked among being Billy Jean King at #5. Who is #1 you wonder... that honor belongs to Dodger Sandy Koufax. You can view his article HERE.
Here is what he had to say about his tennis four:
#5 Billy Jean King: A man raised in the feminist 1970s with four sisters could ill afford to keep King off this list. The Long Beach native didn't seem so cool then with her cat-rimmed glasses and all that jabbering about ERA (wasn't that "earned-run average?"). Her 1973 tennis match against huckster Bobby Riggs turned our house into the Korean border, but her straight-sets victory pretty much set everyone straight. King became cooler with age, especially when we later found out Elton John's song, "Philadelphia Freedom," was dedicated not to the Liberty Bell but to King. Equal rights for women, it turned out, were cool. Billie Jean, royalty on the courts, served society with a brazen openness that turned perspiration into inspiration.
#11 Jack Kramer: Rose out of Montebello High to win Wimbledon in 1947 and become tennis' Arnold Palmer. What a racket.
#16 Arthur Ashe: He ate cool for breakfast and was way more than a tennis star out of UCLA.
#49 Tracy Austin: Won U.S. (tennis) Open in Palos Verdes pigtails but scored her most important victories in charity work.
Photo: Michael Cole/HBO
