Essay: Why and When and Whether to Confess

It was the most aggressively competitive series of confessions since Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Like a sinner who does not want to miss any bets, Billie Jean King made the rounds of the major churches and synagogues of press and television last week. She unburdened herself to ABC'S Barbara Walters, the one woman in America officially empowered to hear confessions and grant absolution. She went over the scandal with Rona Barrett. She spent ten hours with an old friend from PEOPLE.

Well, in the words of every high school football coach and that famous felon John...

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