During her remarkable career on the professional tennis tour, Billie Jean King won 39 Grand Slam championships — 12 in singles, 16 in doubles and 11 in mixed doubles. However, those championships and others she won are only marginally on her radar now, thanks to a lesson King learned from her father at a young age: never look back. It is a lesson that propels her to this day on her approach to life. “The first time I was ever on the front page of the sports section in my hometown newspaper, it was for losing a tennis match 6-0, 6-0,” King said. “I did not even win a single game. My father told me to never worry again about what is printed about me or my performance because it is about yesterday.” Today, almost 20 years have passed since she last played competitively, yet King continues to move forward and enjoy every opportunity that comes her way. At the beginning of the month, King played host for an event she created, the Advanta World Team Tennis Junior Nationals, held at the Barnes Tennis Center. There were 16 teams from throughout the United States made up of six players each, three boys and three girls all in the 14- to 18-year-old range. It is doubtful one could find many retired professional athletes in any sport, 20-some years removed from the competition, who will spend four days with nearly 100 teenagers. “I love it,” said King during an interview at last week’s event. “Every year, I learn more and more how smart all of these kids are about life.” Unlike many celebrity event hosts who may make just a keynote speech or two, King is hands-on the entire Junior Nationals event. Between giving seminars off the court, coaching sessions on the court, meeting with teams and individual players and offering advice to team coaches, she is involved with the competition from start to finish. So what is her best advice for working with teenagers? “Be truthful,” King said. “Kids want to know the truth and you better be honest and tell them. By doing so, not only do you teach them but they also teach you.” At the conclusion of the competition, King, whose life never seems to hit the “pause button,” headed for Washington, D.C. There she was honored Aug. 12 as one of 16 people receiving from Pres. Barack Obama the nation’s top civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “The word ‘freedom’ has always been one of my favorites, ever since I was a young girl,” King said. “I love history. Think about what it means: The freedom to worship. The freedom to believe in a cause.” Yet for King, the honor means more than just what she has achieved or done in her lifetime. “This award also belongs to everyone who has helped me along the way in my life — my parents and brother, Clyde Walker, who first taught me how to play tennis and made it fun, teachers I had in school,” King said. This was not King’s first time meeting Obama. In June, she was at a conference focusing on the impact of Title IX when a woman told her, “The president wants to meet with you.” “I thought she meant the president of one of the organizations who were part of the conference,” King said. “So I asked, ‘Which president?’ To which the woman replied, ‘The President of the United States. He is waiting for you now.’” In the ensuing 20-minute conversation, King was stunned to learn Obama was a longtime admirer. “The president told me when he was 12 or 13 years old, he would come watch me practice at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, which, of course, is the school he attended,” King said. “Then he told me in later years of places in Chicago where he would watch me train, too. I could not believe it.” King said Obama also told her, “I just knew you were going to beat Bobby Riggs,” referring to her much-celebrated match with Riggs, an achievement often cited as playing a significant role in the enormous growth of tennis in the 1970s. The theme for the recent Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony was “Agents of Change.” In addition to King, other recipients included Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice; renowned South African freedom fighter Desmond Tutu; actor Sidney Poitier; and acclaimed physicist Stephen Hawking. For more information on King, the Advanta WTT Junior Nationals and her Presidential Medal of Freedom award, visit www.wtt.com.