Coco Gauff is having quite the summer: Taking to the courts at Wimbledon, winning her first doubles grand slam at the French Open, another trip to Paris for the Olympics, and a clothing collaboration with American Eagle.
This fall, the Delray Beach local and tennis phenom will be able to add “Wheaties cereal box star” to her resume.
During a special ceremony at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City on Aug. 20, tennis legend King was seen “passing the torch” to Gauff “‘as a Wheaties Champion to another generation of greatness,” according to a press release. The event was a part of US Open Fan Week.
On Instagram, Gauff, 20, posted, “Huge honor to be a @wheatiescereal champion alongside @billiejeanking. Find BJK’s box in store now and mine this fall!”
In 2019, Gauff beat Venus Williams in her very first Grand Slam appearance at Wimbledon. In 2023, Gauff was just 19 years old when she became the youngest American since Serena Williams (in 1999) to win the US Open. This year, she was the only athlete and the youngest honoree to be included in TIME’s Women of the Year list. During the Paris Olympics, she was a flag bearer alongside basketball star LeBron James—making her Team USA’s first tennis player and youngest athlete to be given the honor.
A true hometown hero, Gauff will be donating $50,000 to the City of Delray Beach Parks & Recreation to help residents participate in sports programs for free. It’s a part of her mission to make tennis more accessible; she cites her grandmother, Yvonne Lee, as an inspiration.
Lee and three classmates were the first Black students to integrate the then-all-white Seacrest High School in 1961. In 1970, Carver High School students merged with the school to create Atlantic Community High School. Lee and her husband, Eddie Odom, Jr., would later found the Delray Beach American Little League, reaching children in mostly Black neighborhoods to play baseball.
Aside from gold medals, trophies and championship rings, one of the biggest honors for an athlete is to be featured on the front of Wheaties cereal boxes. Dubbed “the breakfast of champions,” athletes have adorned the front of Wheaties boxes since 1934, when Lou Gehrig became the first to greet Americans at the breakfast table in the form of a cereal box. Others include Jesse Owens, Mary Lou Retton, Chris Evert, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Kerry Strug, Dale Earnhardt, Muhammad Ali, Stephen Curry, Serena Willams, and more.
King was honored with her own Wheaties box earlier this year, and during the tennis event in New York, Gauff and King held each other’s boxes, bridging the generation gap with a love of tennis.
