Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette. Hey, girl.
And you are tuned in to Tweed Trends. It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today. Today's Women's History Spotlight is on Lucia Lucy Harris. Let's get started.
I just finished watching the documentary, the Queen of Basketball, and knew immediately that today's episode had to be about Lucia Lucy Harris. So here goes. She was born in 1955 in Southern Mississippi, one of 11 children. Her parents were sharecroppers.
So the kids would go to school. And when they got home, their first job was to go and pick cotton, because that's how they made their living. Now, outside of that, though, they were the only family in the area to have a basketball goal in their yard. So all of the neighborhood kids would come to their house to play, because they were the only ones with a basketball goal.
She even tells how she loved watching basketball on television so much that she would try to hide and watch. And she would get in trouble. It's like, hey, Lucy, go to bed. You got school tomorrow.
And it's like, OK, and then she'd watch a little bit more. The crazy thing, though, is so she says that by the time she got to high school, kids were teasing her because of her height. She joins the basketball team, but she didn't know how to play. That part was a little shocking to me.
Because I'm like, you guys were the only ones with the basketball goal. How come she didn't know how to play? But it could have been one of those things like, you're a girl. She was the second the youngest.
So maybe it was just like, you know what? You step aside. The big kids are going to play. Go find something else to do.
Who knows? But in hearing her talk about how she was teased about her height, I can relate to that, because I've been called tree and other things that not so kind words, because of my height. And kind of like Lucia, I used my height to my advantage. I ended up modeling when I was in high school, because I had the height of a model.
I got to wear the bride dresses, where the other short girls had to wear the bridesmaid's dresses, different things like that in our modeling program that we were in. Now, with Lucia, though, she was like, her height was something that hurt her, because people teased her about that. And then she was able to now use that as an asset, because it was a big help when she was learning how to play basketball. 1972 was key, because this is when Title IX passed.
And basically what it meant was that if you have a program for men's athletics, you need to have a program for women's athletics as well. This made it so that when she graduated from high school, she was able to go to college, continue to play basketball, and play competitively. So she initially wanted to go to Alcorn State, but they didn't have a women's program at the time. So she ended up going to Delta State, because they had a program, and they were like, come on, let's do this.
There, the women's team played under AIAW, which is the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, whereas the men played under NCAA. With AIAW, the team that she was on that first year, her freshman year, they went 15 and won, and that one game that they lost was the one that determined whether or not they would go to the national championships. So they said, you know what? We're not doing this again.
If we get this far, we're going to the championships. And they did for the next three years and won all three years. Being a contributing member on a three-time national championship basketball team was not the end of Lucia's basketball career. Queen Lucy was an Olympian also.
In the 1976 Olympics, she was one of the members of the first Olympic women's basketball team. She played in the first game and scored the first points for that first game. The team brought back silver. Then in 1977, she was the first and only woman to be drafted by the NBA.
The unfortunate part was she thought that this was just something for show, and she didn't think that she was good enough to play with the guys. So she kind of bowed out on that one and was like, you know what, thank you. But no, thank you. Then let's keep it moving.
In 1992, she was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. She was the first African-American woman to do that. And in 1999, she was an inaugural inductee into the women's basketball hall of fame. Unfortunately, Queen Lucy passed away on January 18th of this year, 2022.
But we have the documentary and it's got footage of the games that she's played and everything. So definitely check it out. And it goes without saying she's definitely a pioneer of women's basketball. And honestly, I keep thinking what if she would have played in the NBA?
It might have actually been co-ed by now. Just saying, you know, no need to speculate, but I'm just saying. So if you watch the documentary, if you're like me, it's going to make you want to know more. You're probably going to want to dive a little deeper into her story.
And I say, go for it. And hey, why not share some of your findings with me? You know where to find me, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, at he. That's at H-E-D-E-T-E-T-E.
Or just look at the hashtag tweet trends. Have a great day. Have an awesome week. And I'll see you guys back here again on Thursday.