Billie Jean King, 82, earns history degree 65 years after enrolling

Tennis legend Billie Jean King earned a bachelor's degree in history from Cal State Los Angeles on Monday, 65 years after she first enrolled in 1961, graduating at age 82 as the first college diploma recipient in her immediate family.

The graduation at the East Los Angeles campus — five miles from downtown and home to a predominantly Hispanic and Latino student body — adds a Southern California dimension to a story King said she hopes will inspire others to pursue education at any age.

King walked across the stage with approximately 6,000 fellow members of the Class of 2026, according to The Korea Times. She wore hot pink glasses and royal blue sneakers; her graduation gown displayed a gold stole bearing her initials, the letters "G.O.A.T." and an embroidered tennis racket.

King first enrolled at Cal State Los Angeles in 1961 — the same year she won her first Wimbledon doubles title — but never received financial support as a student-athlete. "Being a student-athlete didn't mean I had a scholarship," she said in her commencement address, according to The Korea Times. "Financial support wasn't available to women in 1961, even though my friends Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith were both scholarship students on the men's teams at UCLA and USC."

The prize disparity of that era underscored her point: her 1961 Wimbledon doubles victory yielded a $45 gift voucher. The Korea Times reported the same title today carries prize money of nearly $500,000.

King said she had spent years correcting anyone who described her as a college graduate. "I said, 'Don't ever say graduated, I haven't earned it yet,'" she told the publication. After the ceremony, she called the milestone more meaningful than expected. "It means a lot more to me than I thought. I am so glad I did it. My hope is that one other person will go back to school," she said.

Addressing graduates at one of California's most diverse public universities, King offered a broader message beyond tennis. "We can never understand inclusion unless we've been excluded," she said, before closing her speech with the Spanish declaration: "Si se puede!"

King announced two years ago that she would return to Cal State Los Angeles to finish her degree. A bronze statue of her already stands outside the university's physical education building — now joined by the distinction of a diploma she said she had spent decades feeling she still owed herself. "It's never too late, whatever age you are, whatever your abilities are, go for it if you want it," she said.