By Caitlin O’Kane      JUNE 29, 2022 / 2:29 PM 

CBS NEWS

Soccer star Carson Pickett became the first person with a limb difference to play on the U.S. Women's National Team (USWNT). Pickett, who was born without her left forearm and hand, helped the team win against Colombia on Tuesday.

The team and Pickett both posted about the historic moment on Instagram. "Kick It Like Pickett," they wrote.

Pickett has posted on social media about her limb difference in the past. In April, which is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness Month, she said while she is "confident and comfortable" showing her arm, she knows "there are so many people in the world who aren't."

"The feeling of being different and the anxiety of not fitting in is something that I have been through," Pickett wrote, sharing how she used to wear sweatshirts during summer to hide her arm. "This month is really really special, important and should be celebrated." 

She said she wants to be an advocate for others like herself. "Let's all try to love ourselves no matter what we look like and let's all be kind to each other above all else. Different people are my kind of people. The world needs more of that," she said.

In 2019, the defender made headlines when she shared a special moment with a 22-month- old who also had a limb difference. Pickett met Joseph Tidd, who was born without a left hand, at an Orlando Pride match. She is one of his favorite soccer players, and a photo of the two arm-bumping went viral.

Pickett has played for the under-17 and under-23 national teams, but Tuesday was her debut game on the USWNT. She has also played on several National Soccer League teams, including the Orlando Pride, and most recently, the North Carolina Courage. 

At 28 years old, Pickett is the oldest field player to debut for the USA since McCall Zerboni made her international debut at the age of 30 in 2017. Pickett is the oldest field player to ever start for the USA in her first cap, according to the team.

"Carson did very well in training for us in last week and with the management of minutes for Emily Fox that we had, we felt like Carson would be a good replacement, and I'm happy that she was able to perform well for 90 minutes," U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski said, according to ESPN.

Billie Jean King  (1943-)
https://www.billiejeanking.com/?fbclid=IwAR0N1sYVaFI_xZ76BhSrScyVt9amRx2n_84-MNZkkC2mX7lvgAMVCLl0Rm4

One of the greatest tennis players of all time and a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient for her advocacy for women in sports and LGBTQ rights, Billie Jean King won 39 Grand Slam titles in her tennis career and led the fight for equal pay in tennis. Known for beating Bobby Riggs in 1973’s “Battle of the Sexes,” King also helped establish the Women’s Tennis Association, the organization that oversees women’s professional tennis.

Billie Jean King was born Billie Jean Moffitt on November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California. Her father, Bill, was a fire fighter and her mother, Betty, was a homemaker. An athlete from a young age, King played basketball and softball as a child. Her younger brother, Randy, went on to pitch in Major League Baseball. King began playing tennis at the age of 11 and immediately fell in love with the sport. She played on public tennis courts and bought her racquet with money she earned from odd jobs. She soon told her mother, “I am going to be No. 1 in the world.”

In 1958, King won her age bracket in the Southern California championship. She first garnered international attention in 1961, when she and Karen Hantze Susman became the youngest pair to win the Wimbledon doubles title. King attended California State University, Los Angeles from 1961-1964 and competed in tennis tournaments while also working as a tennis instructor. In 1965, she married law student Larry King.

King won her first major singles title at Wimbledon in 1966, a feat she repeated in 1967 and 1968. In 1966, she achieved her childhood dream when she became the #1-ranked women’s tennis player in the world. She claimed that title five more times in her career: 1967, 1968, 1971, 1972, and 1974. Between 1961-1979, playing both singles and doubles, King won Wimbledon a record 20 times and claimed 13 U.S. titles, four French titles, and two Australian titles. In 1972, she won the U.S. Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon – three Grand Slam victories in one year. King was named Sports Illustrated’s 1972 Sportsperson of the Year, the first woman and first tennis player ever to earn the title.

King was at the top of the women’s tennis game, but the prize money for women’s tennis was a fraction of that for men’s tennis at the time. King became a vocal advocate for equal prize money. In 1970, she was one of nine players who broke away from the tennis establishment in protest. Soon, they organized their own tour, the Virginia Slims Circuit (sharing the sponsor cigarette’s slogan “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby”). In 1971, King became the first female athlete to earn over $100,000 in a single season. Still, when she won the U.S. Open in 1972, King received $15,000 less than the male champion. She declared that if the prize money was not equal the following year, she wouldn’t play. King persuaded her fellow players to form a union, the Women’s Tennis Association, and served as its first president in 1973. That same year, the U.S. Open became the first major tournament to offer equal prizes to the male and female players.

In 1973, King’s campaign for gender equality in sports received global attention when she took part in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match against Bobby Riggs, a former professional tennis player and self-proclaimed male chauvinist. Riggs was determined to prove that women’s tennis was inferior to men’s tennis. Amid the match’s circus-like atmosphere, King defeated Riggs in straight sets while over 90 million people watched across the world.

 In 1974, King and her husband established the Women’s Sports Foundation, an organization that helps provide access to sports for girls. They also founded World TeamTennis (WTT), the first mixed-gender professional sports league. With WTT, King became the first woman to coach a co-ed professional team and, in 1984, the first female commissioner of a professional sports league.

In the early 1970s, King began a secret romantic relationship with another woman. She feared coming out because of her parents’ homophobia and potential harm the news could cause the women’s tennis tour. King was publicly outed as a lesbian in 1981 and immediately lost all her endorsement deals. After the news broke, her representatives urged her not to confirm it, but King refused to deny her lesbianism. She and her husband divorced in 1987, but remained friendly. King then began a relationship with her current partner, Illana Kloss, a fellow professional tennis player.

King retired from competition in 1983, but her career in tennis continued. King coached the U.S. Fed Cup team from 1995-1996 and 1998-2003, bringing home victories in 1999 and 2000. (The Fed Cup was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in 2020.) She also coached the 1996 and 2000 U.S. women’s Olympic tennis teams that both won gold medals. King has served as a tennis commentator for several major TV networks as well.  

In 1990, Life magazine named King one of the “100 Most Important Americans” of the twentieth century. Of the four athletes on the list, she was the only woman. King established the Billie Jean King WTT Charities Foundation in 1998 and has also served as a director of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the National AIDS Fund.

King has continued to garner recognition for her social justice work. The USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY, where the U.S. Open is played, was named in her honor in 2006. In 2009, President Barack Obama presented King with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for championing the rights of women and the LGBTQ community. King was the first female athlete to receive the award. King and Kloss founded the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative in 2014, a non-profit organization that seeks to rid workplaces of discrimination based on race, gender, and sexuality.

King’s legacy of achievement and advocacy continues to inspire female and LGBTQ athletes around the world. In 2019, ESPN established the Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award to recognize young athletes who use sports to improve their communities.

Published June 2021.

MLA – Brandman, Mariana. “Billie Jean King.” National Women’s History Museum, 2021. Date accessed.

Chicago – Brandman, Mariana. “Billie Jean King.” National Women’s History Museum. 2021. www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/billie-jean-king

She’s made plenty of headlines because her sport is one a lot of people – both men and women – would not dare to do and she is excellent at it.  Vicki Golden is a professional freestyle motocross rider.

She began biking at age seven, imitating her brother’s passion for dirt bike riding.  When her parents recognized her potential in the sport, they bought her first bike and arranged for private lessons.  That’s when she was exposed to the hilly terrain around San Diego near her home.  She described the experience in this way. “It was a gnarly experience, but that’s what made me such a good rider.  We didn’t have well-groomed, brand-new prepped tracks.  We had the hills.”

She began racing as an amateur and then turned pro when she was seventeen.  What has followed in the years since she became an amateur racer and then a professional is a string of medals and firsts.

• The Loretta Lynn AMA Women’s Amateur Champion.
• Four-time X Games gold medalist.
• The first female competitor in a Moto X freestyle competition, winning a bronze medal in the best whip category.
• Nominated for the ESPY’s Best Female Action Sports Athlete award in 2014.

In January, 2018, it looked like her career might come to an end when she had a serious accident during an international motorcycle freestyle show.  It was an extremely traumatic time for her but, after seven surgeries and nine months of difficult rehabilitation, she was determined to return to the sport she loves.

She came roaring back by landing her first ever FMX backflip off the 15-foot Next Level ramp in Auckland, Australia.  She is the only woman who has flipped one of the largest ramps in the world.  That was March, 2019.

On HISTORY’s “Evel Live 2”, Sunday, July 7, 2019, she sped through a series of flaming wooden boards becoming the first female to break the record which was set in 2006.

It seems likely she will continue to make news and win more accolades.