[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 30 (Tuesday, February 15, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S702-S703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Remembering Lusia ``Lucy'' Harris

  Mr. President, last week, when the Academy Awards announced their 
nominations, we learned that a New York Times documentary on the life 
of basketball legend Lusia Harris had been nominated for an Oscar.
  This hit documentary has already received nearly 700,000 views on 
YouTube, where viewers can find it under the name of ``The Queen of 
Basketball.''
  I was certainly thrilled to hear the news of this nomination, and I 
encourage every American to watch the 20-minute film. It is a story of 
American grit and determination and the story of an extraordinary 
Mississippian breaking multiple glass ceilings in the world of sports.
  Known by her friends as Lucy, Ms. Harris led an extraordinary life, 
becoming a three-time national champion and Olympian and the first and 
only woman officially drafted by the NBA--the first and only woman ever 
officially drafted by the NBA.
  Unfortunately, we lost Ms. Harris, all too soon, last month at the 
age of 66. Lucy Harris, a Mississippi Delta native, was the 10th of 11 
children born to sharecropper parents. As a child, she would stay up 
past her bedtime watching the basketball greats: Bill Russell, Wilt 
Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson. In her words, ``I 
wanted to grow up and shoot that ball just like they would shoot it, 
and I did.''
  At a towering height of 6 foot 3 inches, Lucy became a superstar at 
Amanda Elzy High School in Greenwood, MS. When she graduated in 1973, 
title IX was fresh off the books, opening up options for college 
basketball.
  Lucy was quickly recruited to Delta State University on a 
scholarship, where she led her team to three consecutive national 
championships as the

[[Page S703]]

team's only African-American player. As she put it:

       When I got the ball, I knew my job was to score. And more 
     than likely, I would score.

  Lucy averaged 25.9 points per game and 14.4 rebounds while she was at 
Delta State, where the women's game started to sell twice as many 
tickets as the men's. Her raw talent and leadership lifted the lady 
statesman to a record of 109 wins and 6 losses during her tenure--109 
and 6. And to this day, she remains Delta State's alltime scoring 
leader with 2,981 point.
  It should be no surprise that Lucy was recruited for the 1976 
Olympics in Montreal. There, she made history by scoring the first 
points ever in a women's Olympic basketball game and led Team USA to a 
silver medal.
  If that wasn't enough, the following year, she was recruited by the 
New Orleans Jazz, a men's basketball team; but by then, she had married 
her high school sweetheart, George Stewart, and was pregnant with their 
first child. And so she turned down the chance to play for the New 
Orleans Jazz.
  Instead, she returned to Delta State University, where she served as 
an assistant coach and earned a master's in education. She later became 
a high school teacher and girls' basketball coach at her alma mater in 
Greenwood. And in between, she spent 2 years coaching women's 
basketball at Texas Southern University in Houston.
  Lucy Harris' name is forever written in the history books. In 1992, 
she became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Basketball 
Hall of Fame and was later ushered into the Women's Basketball Hall of 
Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.
  She is survived by her children: Christopher, Eddie, Christina, and 
Crystal, all of whom have won college degrees and who carry on her 
memory.
  If the WNBA had existed in the 1970s, I think we can safely assume 
Lucy Harris would have continued to dominate the court for many years. 
She did not get that chance. The WNBA would not come into existence 
until 1997.