It is 2022 and tonight the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team is playing for a gold medal against the United States in the Beijing Olympics. Having been watching the Canadian women’s hockey team playing over the last decade I take them for granted but the journey to national recognition certainly couldn’t have easy. And between you and me the women’s hockey game has a different pace and the prohibition about body checks brings out the finesse of hockey you will not see in men’s hockey. Quite frankly it is captivating and Canadians are slowly giving recognition to women’s hockey stars.
But there are pioneers in women’s sport such as Lusia “Lucy” Harris who exploded onto the women’s basketball scene in the 1970’s after joining the Delta State women’s basketball team in Cleveland, Mississippi where she powered the team to three successive national championships and was part of the United States Olympic basketball team at the 1976 Montreal summer Olympics where she scored the first basket in women’s basketball Olympic history.
But after that it seemed she had nowhere to go as there was no WNBA in existence. She was drafted in 1977 by the New Orleans’s Pelican’s NBA team but declined the offer and ended up coaching her high school basketball team. Her bi-polar disorder surfaced after the Montreal Olympics.
Lusia comes across as a humble and giggly athlete that accepted the reality of the day after her basketball career and without bitterness and with grace. She was one of the first women inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
You might want to shake your head and say she deserved better but with grace and dignity Lusia accepted the reality of the day. But her dynamism and huge basketball skills advanced women’s basketball and thanks to this documentary one can see her role played by a very classy lady. There is no bitterness, no recriminations just her love of basketball that will be her biggest tribute. She died at 66 in January 18 in Mississippi.
The documentary has been nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 94th Academy Awards. You can see it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPFkcoTfr7g&t=198s
Directed by Ben Proudfoot and executive produced by Shaquille O’Neal.
RKS Film Rating 90/100.
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