Chris Evert sends congratulations to Billie Jean King for eating her Wheaties

Chris Evert knows all about having some Wheaties. In 1987, she became only the second female athlete to grace the front of a box of General Mills cereal. 1984 Olympian Mary Lou Retton had become the first in 1984. This might not sound like much until one realizes that people have been somewhere on a box of Wheaties since 1934, though not always on the front.

Still, while being on a Wheaties box might not feel the same as winning a Grand Slam event, something Evert did 18 times, there is a feeling of being an icon if thousands (millions?) of people are seeing your face first thing in the morning. Evert is an icon. She was not only an all-time great player, but she has excelled as a commentator as well as one who sells women's sports well.

Billie Jean King is an icon as well, of course. She won an astounding 39 Grand Slam titles, including 12 in singles. King did as much to prove women are great athletes too as anyone possibly could when she defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes in 1973. Her name is also part of the women's tennis equivalent of the men's Davis Cup.

Chris Evert and Billie Jean King can now have their own box of Wheaties together

One might have assumed that if Wheaties was going to put her on the front of a box then General Mills might have done so around 1973 when King was in the midst of changing sports history and a lot of people's perspectives about women's sports. Instead, King did not grace the front until this year. Now you can have some Wheaties while reading a bit about Billie Jean King, thankfully.

The moment was not lost on Chris Evert, of course. After King tweeted a photo of herself between two boxes of cereal with a bowl in front of her (admittedly, the bowl does not look like it has cereal in it but instead some kind of gruel) and wrote, in part, "Can anyone guess what I had for breakfast this morning?", Evert responded with, "Congratulations! Welcome to the club! Long overdue."

King has even done things Evert has not. BJK was the first woman to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She also co-founded the WTA. In fact, King is even more important for what she did off the court than winning so much on it.

Chris Evert clearly understands this. While a box of Wheaties might not be the height of humanity, getting one's photo of the front is still pretty special.

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