Ep 41: Lucy Harris.... Lusia Lucy Mae Harris

FIRST WOMEN DRAFTED TO NBA... How misogyny affected the influx of women who competed at LEGENDARY LEVELS! Being a WOMAN IN A MAN’S WORLD; was light work for THE QUEEN OF BASKETBALL,...was even selected for the NBA that year before 33 MEN! You can find her story in an award winning film by Shaquille O'neal and Steph Curry.

B Daht explains more about this women’s sports fact & living legend.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
It's a bit of a trick question. Do you know
who the very first woman was to be drafted to
the NBA, Yes, the Men's Professional Basketball Association. I didn't know.
Maybe you didn't. I didn't know. Maybe you didn't. I
didn't know. Maybe you didn't get I didn't. I didn't know.

(00:24):
I didn't know. Now I say it's a bit of
a trick question, because if I told you it was
Lucia Lucy Harris Stewart, you make counter with hold on
be dot, what about Denise Long back in nineteen sixty nine.
So let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we not?
That's true in nineteen hundred and sixty nine, it was

(00:45):
a nineteen year old white woman. Her name was Denise Long.
She was five eleven graduate of Union with in high school,
and she was the first woman drafted by an NBA team,
the San Francisco Warriors, in the thirteenth round, But the
NBA commissioner vetoed the pick on the grounds that at
the time, the league didn't draft players straight from high school,

(01:06):
nor did they draft women. The needs Long will O
for two. Now that's fast track to Lucilla May Harris,
Lucy what they called her. She was born in February tenth,
nineteen fifty five. She played for Delta State University and
won three consecutive national championships. The very first United States
women's national team that participated in the nineteen seventy six Olympics.

(01:30):
You know, the team that won the silver medal. She
scored the first basket and she was the first and
only woman ever officially drafted by the NBA. In nineteen
seventy seven, the New Orleans Jazz selected Harris with the
one hundred and thirty seventh overall pick. Now, I told
you the San Francisco Warriors had tried to draft the

(01:50):
knees Long eight years prior in nineteen sixty nine, but
the league vetoed that selection. They avoided it, so Lucy
became the first and one woman ever officially drafted in
the NBA. But she never wanted to play in the NBA.
Didn't even try out for the Jazz. It would later
said that she were pregnant at the time and that's
why she didn't attend Jazz training camp in nineteen seventy seven.

(02:13):
Can you dig that the nineteen seventy seven NBA draft
the New Orleans Jazz with the one hundred and thirty
seventh overall pick. Select a woman, a woman that was picked,
mind you, before thirty three men. But she never wanted
to play in the NBA, said she never had the
desire to compete against man. She just wanted to keep
getting buckets on women because she was a woman. She

(02:34):
did play professionally for the Houston Angels of the Women's
Professional Basketball League in the nineteen seventy nine season, but
that was about it. And there's a twenty two minute
documentary about her name The Queen of Basketball and guests
who executive produced it, Shack and Steph Curry, and they
won Oscars for it just a month before her sixty
seventh birthday January of two. We lost Lucia May Harris Stewart.

(02:58):
But when you talk about pioneers of women basketball, let's
make sure we always mentioned Lucia Harris Stewart, Lucy what
they called her. Now take that to school or work
with you, because I didn't know, and maybe you didn't either.