The Queen of Basketball

Update (Jan. 18): Lusia Harris — a pioneering athlete who became a basketball phenomenon in the 1970s, made history as the first woman to score a basket in the Olympics and was one of the first two women inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame — died on Jan. 18 in Mississippi. She was 66. As a child growing up in rural Mississippi, Lusia “Lucy” Harris often stayed up past her bedtime watching her favorite N.B.A. players, dreaming of one day playing on the same courts. Reaching 6 feet 3 inches by the time she was in high school, Harris was often called “long and tall and that’s all” by her classmates — but she knew her height would be an asset on the court. And she wasn’t just tall enough to play the game. She was a rare talent who would go on to be a three-time national college champion and an Olympic silver medalist, making her a national sensation by the time she finished her college career. For an electrifying young basketball player on the national stage, success often comes with a lucrative professional contract and brand deals — but Harris’s moment came in the 1970s, decades before the W.N.B.A. was founded, when few opportunities were available to female athletes interested in pursuing a professional career. In Ben Proudfoot's "The Queen of Basketball," Harris tells the story of what happens when an unstoppable talent runs out of games to win. See more of "Almost Famous:" https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CGYNsoW2iALgt6KRyVQYSEoNFTaHKzo Credits Director: Ben Proudfoot Editors: Stephanie Owens, Ben Proudfoot Executive Producers: Shaquille O'Neal, Stephen Curry, Mike Parris, Donnie F. Wilson, Erick Peyton, Jane Solomon, Adam Ellick, Ben Proudfoot Featuring: Lusia “Lucy” Harris Producers: Elizabeth Brooke, Abby Lynn Kang Davis, Gabriel Berk Godoi, Ben Proudfoot, Brandon Somerhalder, Sarah Stewart Co-Executive Producer: Brian Tetsuro Ivie Cinematographer: Brandon Somerhalder Original Score Composed and Orchestrated by: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson Co-Producer: Jeremy Lambert Supervising Sound Editor and Re-Recording Mixer: Sean Higgins Colorist: Stephen Derluguian Post Production Supervisors: Dillon Brown, Laura Carlson Additional Editing: Mónica Salazar, Nick Garnham Wright Assistant Editor: Cody Wilson Sound Effects Editor: T.J. Jacques Second Unit Cinematographer: Haley Watson Additional Music and Mixing: Erik Kertes Musicians: Loren Battley, Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, Erik Kertes, Garth Neustadter Archival Digitization: Hannah Auslander, Melanie Lim Archival Research: Laura Jespersen Story Reported by: Haley Watson More from The New York Times Video: Subscribe: http://bit.ly/U8Ys7n Watch all of our videos here: http://nytimes.com/video Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nytvideo Twitter: https://twitter.com/nytvideo ---------- Op-Docs is the New York Times’ award-winning series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers. Learn more about Op-Docs and how to submit to the series. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (@NYTopinion).