Lusia Harris was a basketball pioneer and the only woman ever drafted by the NBA.
- Died: January 18, 2022 (Who else died on January 18?)
- Details of death: Died unexpectedly in Greenwood, Mississippi at the age of 66.
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Women’s basketball pioneer
Harris played high school basketball before joining the newly established women’s team at Delta State University in 1973. She was a standout on a team that won three consecutive national championships. While she was in college, Harris was selected for the U.S. team, which won gold at the 1975 Pan American Games. The team went to the Summer Olympics the following year, the first time women’s basketball was included in the Olympics. Harris scored the first ever points in women’s Olympic basketball, and her team won silver.
After Harris’ 1977 college graduation, she was selected by the New Orleans Jazz, the first and only woman ever drafted by an NBA team. She declined to try out, as she was pregnant at the time. Harris spent a season playing for the Houston Angels in the Women’s Professional Basketball League, and she later worked as a coach and teacher. She was the first Black woman inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as well as a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She was the subject of the 2021 documentary “The Queen of Basketball.”
Harris on her historic Olympics moment
“I really didn’t realize that [my time playing] was a history-making moment. But, as one of my teammates pointed out to me, by scoring the first point in that game meant that it was immediately history and a record that could never be broken.” —from a 2021 interview for the Undefeated
Tributes to Lusia Harris
Full obituary: Yahoo! Sports
