“I Said ‘No’ to the NBA:” How Mississippi’s Queen of Basketball Changed Sports Forever

From a sharecropper’s daughter to Delta State superstar, Olympic silver medalist, and Hall of Fame inductee, Lusia Harris remains Mississippi’s “Queen of Basketball.”

Early Life

Born in a small town in South Mississippi in 1955, Lusia “Lucy” Mae Harris grew up in a tight-knit, predominantly Black community where everyone knew one another. In an interview near the end of her life, Harris recalled, “There was 11 of us, a big family…My parents were sharecroppers. So we would pick cotton when we came home from school. That was our way of making a living. I know we went without, but we didn’t want for anything.” In a household where life was measured in the rhythm of school, work, and family, young Lucy discovered her love for basketball the way many children do: by playing with friends and improvising with what she had.

Her childhood home had a basketball goal (the only one in her neighborhood) and the Harris home became a gathering place for local kids who wanted to imitate the NBA games they watched on TV. Harris stayed up late at night, draping a quilt over the television just to watch Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and her favorite, Oscar Robertson. Remembering this time in her life, Harris remembers thinking: “I wanted to grow up and have my own family. And I wanted to shoot that ball just like they were shooting.”

At 6’3”, Harris was markedly taller than her peers and her teachers. Though a clear asset to her sports career, Harris was singled out by her classmates: “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.” Driven by her need to prove herself and her love of late-night basketball watching, Harris joined her high school basketball team.

Though she had no previous coaching, Harris quickly excelled. She had learned offense and defense, pivoting, and rebounding by playing with neighborhood kids and watching NBA greats. As Harris gained momentum in Minter City (her hometown), her self-confidence also slowly blossomed. She recalled a high school moment that changed her self perception: “I remember one day, I had scored 40 points. Their whole team had not scored 40 points. My whole attitude changed about my height. It became an asset. Long and tall, and that’s not all.”

College Career

In 1972, Title IX passed, opening new doors for women’s athletics. Lusia initially intended to attend Alcorn State, an HBCU, but Alcorn lacked a women’s basketball program. When she heard Delta State University was starting one, she changed her plans and became a Lady Statesman.

At Delta State, Harris became the cornerstone of the Lady Statesmen’s rise to national and then international fame. It wasn’t an altogether happy experience for Harris, though. Part of what had appealed to Harris about Alcorn was the idea of joining a Black athletic community; without a women’s basketball team at Alcorn, that dream vanished. “Being the only Black on [Delta State’s] team, I had to adjust to that,” Harris said in an interview. “I wasn’t really close to anybody on the team. But once we got on that floor, you couldn’t tell. When I got the ball I knew my job was to score. And more than likely, I would score.” 

Under the indomitable Margaret Wade, the Lady Statesmen’s rise was meteoric. Facing Immaculata, a Pennsylvania team that had won three national championships, Delta State achieved the unthinkable: three consecutive Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championships. The NCAA was not open to women’s sports. Delta State women’s basketball games were intense and almost always sold out. Even in non-championship play, the Lady Statesmen were so renowned that Delta State paid for them to be flown to their games. The men’s basketball team did not enjoy the same passionate following, often bemoaning empty bleachers and long bus rides. 

Harris’ leadership was undeniable; an AIAW commentator summed it up nicely when he said: “[Delta State’s] main weapon is No. 45, Lusia Harris. Always a dominating inside force, her scoring and rebounding is a must if Delta is to claim its second straight national title.”

In 1976, Harris and the Lady Statesman played for the U.S. women’s basketball team in the Montreal Olympics, the first Olympic tournament to include women’s basketball. She scored the first basket in Olympic women’s basketball history. On her incredible historic moment, Harris later recalled that, “ it was just unreal… Ann Meyers passed me the ball. I shot it and made it. That’s the first basket in the history of Olympic women’s basketball. And Ann Meyers said, ‘That’s history.’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah?’ Maybe that is history. Now, that’s a record that would never be broken.” The team went on to earn a silver medal, giving Mississippi a hometown hero on the world stage.

NBA Draft and Post-Collegiate Career

With no WNBA, Harris was out of options when she graduated the following year. After spending a decade of her life as the best collegiate basketball player, Harris was adrift. When her high school sweetheart proposed, she said yes. Harris always stood by both the achievements and the choices she made: “If I was a man, then there would have been options for me to go further and play. I certainly would have had money, would have been able to do a lot of things that I would have wanted to do. Yeah, they’re millionaires. Famous. But I wanted to grow up and shoot that ball just like they would shoot it, and I did.”

That same year, 1977, Harris made history again when the New Orleans Jazz drafted her, making her the first and only woman officially drafted by an NBA team. Though she did not attend training camp—she and her fiancé, George, had decided to start a family— the draft served as an extraordinary recognition of her talent. Dealing with a mental health episode and prioritizing her health as well as her future family, Harris declined the invitation. In her words, “I said ‘no’ to the NBA.”

Harris began coaching women’s basketball at her high school alma mater, Amanda Elzy High School, serving as a role model for young female athletes while taking care of her mental health and raising her four children. Though it’s easy to look back and feel pangs of sympathy for a woman at the top of her field with nowhere to go, Harris was quick to shut down the what if’s of her inability to go pro. Harris proudly described her career: “Three-time national champion, Olympian, wow, very impressive. I have good memories about basketball. The NBA, I don’t regret not going, not even a little bit.”

Legacy

Harris became the first female athlete inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, escorted by Oscar Robertson, her favorite player to watch on her family’s TV. Her induction into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and the continued recognition from players and fans alike reaffirmed her impact: “Well, as far as singling me out, I think there is a lot of other women who are just as great as I am,” Harris reflected. “Basketball has come a long way. Maybe the world would have known my name, had I continued playing. But it didn’t, so I don’t speculate.”

Harris and her husband raised four children who went on to be student athletes, graduate students, and professionals at the top of their fields. She passed away in 2022 at the age of 66. Nationally, her achievements and obituary were circulated in outlets from NBA.com to the New York Times, Marca, Yahoo Sports, and USA Today.

“Lusia, well, she’s hard to describe, really,” recalled one of Harris’ teammates. “She’s one in a million. I don’t think they’ll ever be another ball player like her.”

Author administrator Corinne Ellington