But you've probably never heard her name.
By now, most of us are aware of the fact that despite efforts toward equality, it's not money or even prestige that make women athletes want to stay in the game. It's passion. |
And passion is exactly what we see with Lusia "Lucy" Harris, one of the greatest American basketball players ever, whose story of being drafted by the N.B.A. in the 1970s has largely been lost to time. |
So we're changing that. In the Op-Doc "The Queen of Basketball," which we released today, the filmmaker Ben Proudfoot presents Harris's story in her own words, bringing it to life through a trove of archival footage he discovered in the library of her alma mater, Delta State University. |
Born to sharecroppers in rural Mississippi and growing up to 6 foot 3 inches, Harris turned a height her classmates mocked into an uncommon advantage and quickly became a standout in the 1970s. She earned a scholarship for basketball, where she was the only Black woman on the team, carrying them to an N.C.A.A. championship — three separate times. Then came the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. This was before the W.N.B.A. was founded, so the N.B.A. came knocking instead, and drafted her. |
To find out what happened next, you'll have to watch the award-winning short film, which originally premiered at the Tribeca Festival earlier this month, where it received a standing ovation. |
Proudfoot found Harris while developing films for "Almost Famous," our collection of Op-Docs about extraordinary people who were on the cusp of making history and fell just short. We've told the story of Kim Hill, who was the female member of the Black Eyed Peas before Fergie, and the Black astronaut Ed Dwight, which both grapple with the phenomenon of missing out on your dreams and learning to be happy anyway. |
When Proudfoot tracked down Harris, he called me right away, elated. As a reporter and video producer in Opinion, I've spent years helping expose the truths behind the female athletes whose public achievements often mask private pain. But I'm haunted by the extraordinary women who never got to see glory like their male counterparts in the first place. I'd never heard of Harris. We knew right away we had an important film on our hands. |
When you watch American women compete at the Olympics this summer, think of athletes like Harris. We are standing on her shoulders. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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