She stood at 6’3, 185 pounds, and had a mean pivot! Lusia “Lucy” Harris was THAT girl on the court: a powerful center who led Delta State University’s women’s basketball team to three consecutive national championships.
She was the queen of basketball, so why don’t more of us know her name?
Harris came from humble beginnings, and although she worked hard on the court, she was determined to do things HER way.
So in 1977, when the New Orleans Jazz NBA team drafted her in the 7th round, the whole world watched to see what she would do.
Lusia Harris is the only woman ever successfully drafted into the NBA, and she turned them down! She thought it might’ve been a publicity stunt, so instead of joining a male-dominated industry run by white men, she chose her own path.
Harris rejected the NBA with no regrets about choosing Black love instead. She married her high school sweetheart, started a family, and became the head basketball coach at her old high school.
Sports institutions have been profiting off Black bodies and labor for centuries, often with little in return. Like Lusia Harris, we can be great in our own right and don’t need validation from THEM to be successful!
There’s beauty in Black folks having the agency to determine our futures – for ourselves, by ourselves.