Lusia Harris
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Lusia Harris-Stewart is a pioneer of women's basketball. She led her college, Delta State to three consecutive AIAW (before the NCAA) championships, and was named tournament MVP each time. Her college career record was an outstanding 109-5. She played on the first U.S. women's Olympic basketball team in 1976 in Montreal. She led the team to a silver medal - after just six weeks of practice. The New Orleans Jazz drafted her in the seventh round of the 1977 draft, making her the first female drafted by a NBA team.
Lusia Harris-Stewart was born February 10, 1955 in Minter City, MS. She was the tenth of eleven children. She always wanted to beat her siblings in basketball and eventually grew to six feet three inches. She planned to attend Alcorn A&M University, which did not have a women's basketball team. She was asked by Coach Maragaret Wade, who was starting a women's team if she would attend Delta State, in Cleveland, MS. This was before Title XI, so there were no sports scholarships for girls. She attended school on a combination of academic scholarships and work study. After graduation she worked for Delta State as an admissions counselor and assistant coach, after a brief stint with the short-lived Womens Basketball League (WBL) in 1980.
She was the first player to win the Broderick Cup for Outstanding Women's Basketball Player. She was the first female player inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and was in the first class inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
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