{"id":20955,"date":"2022-01-20T16:55:57","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T16:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theoklahomaeagle.net\/?p=20955"},"modified":"2022-01-20T16:55:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T16:55:57","slug":"lusia-harris-the-only-woman-drafted-by-the-nba-dead-at-age-66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/2022\/01\/20\/lusia-harris-the-only-woman-drafted-by-the-nba-dead-at-age-66\/","title":{"rendered":"Lusia Harris, The Only Woman Drafted By The NBA, Dead At Age 66"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/lusia-harris-dead_n_61e7ff60e4b03874b2df51b0?fbclid=IwAR1wFy1RI4ihm33v3B-8UMvMwazkPOHcuDvgLACQcxkHgyUPq2WZLssR5zQ\">www.huffingtonpost.com<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>&#8220;The Queen of Basketball&#8221; was the first Black woman to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLusia Harris, who became the only woman to be officially drafted by an NBA team and scored the first points in women\u2019s basketball history at the Olympics, died Tuesday, her family announced. She was 66.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cli cli-embed cli-embed--full-width js-no-inject\">\n<div class=\"cli-embed__embed-wrapper\">\n<div><iframe id=\"youtube-embed-vPFkcoTfr7g-7261\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vPFkcoTfr7g?rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cWe are deeply saddened to share the news that our angel, matriarch, sister, mother, grandmother, Olympic medalist, The Queen of Basketball, Lusia Harris has passed away unexpectedly today in Mississippi,\u201d the family said in a statement. \u201cThe recent months brought Ms. Harris great joy, including the news of the upcoming wedding of her youngest son and the outpouring of recognition received by a recent documentary that brought worldwide attention to her story.\u201d\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cli cli-advertisement advertisement-holder loaded\">\n<div class=\"advertisement treated\">\n<div id=\"ad-inline-1-1\" class=\"ad-entry_paragraph_1 ad-spot--gam ad-spot--gam-inline-1\" data-google-query-id=\"CKjs-oblwPUCFY_bwAodpyYCaQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_6556\/huffpost.desktop\/en\/sports\/inline-1_0__container__\">Harris, who died in her native Mississippi, was drafted by the New Orleans Jazz in the seventh round in 1977, but didn\u2019t try out for the team because she was pregnant at the time. The San Francisco Warriors tried to draft Denise Long in 1969, but the NBA blocked it because she didn\u2019t meet the criteria to be drafted \u2014 in part because of her gender.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"public-good-placeholder\" class=\"pg-placeholder\">\n<div class=\"pgs-dpg-btn\" data-pgs-partner-id=\"verizon-huffpost\" data-loaded=\"true\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\nHarris helped Delta State University win three straight national titles in the 1970s and earned a silver medal for the United States at the Montreal Olympics in 1976.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\nHarris was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992 as the first Black woman to earn that honor. She was later enshrined into the Women\u2019s Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cli cli-embed cli-embed--full-width js-no-inject\">\n<div class=\"cli-embed__embed-wrapper\">\n<div><iframe id=\"youtube-embed-QNysS_KdrZI-4351\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QNysS_KdrZI?rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe will be remembered for her charity, for her achievements both on and off the court, and the light she brought to her community, the state of Mississippi, her country as the first woman ever to score a basket in the Olympics, and to women who play basketball around the world,\u201d the statement said.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"cli cli-advertisement advertisement-holder loaded\">\n<div class=\"advertisement__label\">Harris averaged 25.9 points and 14.4 rebounds at Delta State, lifting the team to a 109-6 record during her time there. She\u2019s still the school\u2019s all-time leader in scoring (2,981 points) and rebounding (1,662).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<figure id=\"attachment_20963\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20963\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20963 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"http:\/\/theoklahomaeagle.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Untitled-design-13-7-1024x698-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"698\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-20963\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Credit Woman&#8217;s Agenda<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"cli cli-advertisement advertisement-holder loaded\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\nHarris was named to the U.S. women\u2019s team in 1975. The following year, women\u2019s basketball made its Olympic debut and Harris scored the first points in the first game of the tournament.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"primary-cli cli cli-text \">\nShe was the subject of a 2021 short film titled \u201cThe Queen of Basketball\u201d that detailed her career.\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.huffingtonpost.com &nbsp; &#8220;The Queen of Basketball&#8221; was the first Black woman to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. &nbsp; Lusia Harris, who became the only woman to be officially drafted by an NBA team and scored the first points in women\u2019s basketball history at the Olympics, died Tuesday, her family announced. She was&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,103,112,105,110],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-20955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-american","category-featured","category-healthcare","category-national","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20955"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.willoughbyavenue.com\/eagle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=20955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}