Billie Jean King was unmistakable with her signature dark hair, red-rimmed glasses and a pink blazer as she left the Tournament House on Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena on Wednesday morning, January 1st.

She nimbly climbed into the Grand Marshal car, a 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III, and sat next to her wife Ilana Kloss as the tennis star and women’s and LGBTQ+ rights activist waited to drive the 136th. Tournament of Roses Parade – a 5.5 mile slow ride along Colorado Boulevard.

And the waving, the smiling began.

Before the ride began, she noted how much the parade itself had touched her life early on.

“I will always remember this,” she said Wednesday. “Grew up in Long Beach. It was such a part of my life. The whole family would watch the Rose Bowl Parade. and then we watched the football game. We would look forward to this every January 1st. It was a wonderful opportunity.”

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Tournament President Ed Morales was an easy choice for grand marshal, an ideal grand marshal that fit the parade’s theme of “Best Day Ever!”

The highlights of her career and her impact on society are undeniably impressive.

At just 17 years old, the Long Beach native won her first women’s doubles title at Wimbledon. In her career she won 39 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.

Between 1961 and 1979, she won a record 20 Wimbledon titles, 13 US titles (including four singles titles), four French Open titles (one singles title) and two Australian Open titles (one singles title).

And what year was 1972: The US Open, French Open and Wimbledon – three Grand Slams in one year.

She was the top-ranked tennis player in the world for six years.

But all along, tennis was a stage for something bigger.

She pushed for equal prize money in the men’s and women’s games. His online biography states that she competed on the women’s Virginia Slims Tour in 1970 and became the first female athlete to earn over $100,000 in prize money in 1971. However, when she won the US Open in 1972, King received $15,000 less than then-men’s champion Ilie Năstase.

She was instrumental in the campaign for equal prize money for female tennis players and pushed for the passage of Title IX, a federal law that provides equal funding for men’s and women’s athletic programs and prohibits gender discrimination in schools and colleges.

Her legendary 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” victory over Bobby Riggs, a former men’s world number one, was watched by more than 90 million viewers worldwide.

The result: 6:4, 6:3, 6:3 and a victory on the way to equality in sport.

At her best that year, she led the founding of the Women’s Tennis Association and became its first president. Inclusive World Team Team Tennis would follow, as would the Women’s Sports Foundation with a mission to promote girls’ access to sport.

The barriers would continue to rise and King would continue to confront them. In 1981 she was outed as a lesbian and lost her advertising contracts. But in 1987 she was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 2006 the USTA National Tennis Center in New York was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

She retired in 1990, a giant on and off the court.