Lucy Harris was born in Mississippi in 1955. She eventually went on to have a Hall of Fame basketball career. Her story is now being told in the short documentary "Queen of Basketball" by Oscar-nominated director Ben Proudfoot.
In an interview for LA Times Today, Proudfoot told host Lisa McRee about Lucy Harris' life and career.
Proudfoot heard about Lucy Harris from a friend who knew he was interested in creating films about people who history overlooked.
"A fellow director named Haley Watson knew that I was interested in stories where there was a big gap between how significant someone was in history and how well-known they were as a public figure,” Proudfoot said. “She said to google Lucy Harris. I saw this incredible list of accomplishments and I saw very little information about her on the internet. There's no footage of her playing, very few photos. Her name was often misspelled. There's a lot of speculation about why she said no to the NBA. She was the first and only woman officially drafted into the NBA in the 1970s. I just thought, there's something wrong with this picture. This is a singular person. She should be printed on our money and people are misspelling her name. It doesn't make any sense. It was pretty easy to get a hold of her, which is another very strange thing given how prohibitive she was. I explained who I was, and that I wanted to make a film about her story. And she said sure, and we drove to Mississippi.”
The film delves into Harris' childhood and how she got into basketball as a young girl.
"She was born in a place called Minter City, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta,” Proudfoot shared. “When Lucy was six months old, the 10th of 11 children and her family were sharecroppers, Emmett Till was murdered. That's the context into which she was born, in a highly segregated part of the country at that time. She grew up playing basketball outside of her house. She shot right up to six-foot-three in high school, but she didn't know the rules of the game. She had a mentor in high school teach her how to play and she just took off. She was incredible and she kind of blew the bullies away, who called her long and tall by being a real star on the basketball court. As history would have it, the public schools in Mississippi were finally integrating after the federal mandate in the mid-1960s and Title IX was signed in 1972. In 1973, just as Lizzie was graduating high school, Delta State University reinstated their women's basketball team and recruited Lucy to play, and that began her incredible ascent into stardom.”
Harris was a superstar on the court. However, when she graduated college, there was nowhere for her to play professionally.
"She was kind of the first college basketball superstar, really,” Proudfoot explained. “[Delta State University] won three consecutive national championships with her leadership. But when she graduated, there was no place to go. The WNBA wouldn't exist for 20 years. She couldn't play the NCAA. She said no to the NBA because she thought it was a publicity stunt, which it may have been. That part of the film just kind of sucks all the air out of the room because you're on this rocket ship to the Moon and suddenly, [she’s] not allowed to play. It just goes to show what Lucy missed out on in her career. It would have been an incredibly wonderful and enriching career. But when you see the film and you see her personality, you see that actually, we all lost out on knowing Lucy those 45 years. When we didn't know about her, it's us who lost out on that.”
Harris says in "Queen of Basketball" that she did not regret turning down the NBA after they drafted her. Her life post-basketball was not easy. She had a family in Mississippi, but also suffered from mental health issues.
"When she stopped playing, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder,” Proudfoot said. “And that was a big struggle for her throughout her lifetime. She was really adamant about sharing that with me because she wanted to erode the stigma around mental health issues. You know, even the word nervous breakdown is a little bit of an aphorism for real mental health issues. This is something that we need to take more seriously, and that was really important to her and why she shared that with us.”
In January 2022, Harris passed away at the age of 66. Proudfoot talked about how he hopes his film honors her legacy.
"You should know the name Lucy Harris,” he said. “And if you don't, that's why we made the film 'The Queen of Basketball.' We made it for free on YouTube. Anybody can watch it. She's one of the greatest American athletes of the 20th century. This is an inspiring story and it'll lift you up and make you feel amazing. And it's 20 minutes. I hope everybody in the United States watches this film. I hope young people watch this film. This is a real role model for us all to aspire to.”
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