“Long and Tall, and that’s not all,” Lusia “Lucy” Harris tells the story of her upbringing in the Oscar Winning Op-Doc, The Queen of Basketball. Number 45: Harris, 6 '3, with grit and a whole lot of talent, began playing basketball in high school. “I didn’t know how to play. I had to learn how to play. Defense, offense, pivot. I did develop a shot. It just came natural.” After Title 9 was passed, a law that increased equal opportunities for men and women, Delta State opened a basketball program for women. Not originally planning on going there, Harris applied because she knew she was passionate about basketball. She was the only black woman on the team.
By the time she graduated, she had won the school three consecutive national championships. In 1976, women’s basketball competed for the first time in the Olympics. Harris was the first woman to score a basket in the Olympics, and her team would go on to win a silver medal. In 1977, the NBA drafted Harris. She would be the only woman they would ever draft. Though she declined, the invitation was a testament to the firecracker she was in the basketball world. In 1992, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
So why don’t we hear the name Lusia Harris more often? History tends to erase women, especially black women, from history, typically when their opportunities are limited by white men. At that time, the WNBA did not yet exist, so after college, there was no place for women to continue playing professional basketball. Lusia Harris is inspiring because she was a pioneer for women in sports and influenced the creation of that space for women. She showed the world that women can do everything a man can, so much so that they wanted her on their team. “They would tease me, long and tall, and that’s all. That I was tall and I couldn’t do anything else. That wasn’t true.”
Comments