Sports Illustrated - USA (2022-06)

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 34

22-minute documentary The Queen of Basketball,
which debuted in 2021 and won an Oscar in
March. The film was aided by the promo-
tional muscle of its executive producers:
Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry.
In the documentary, Harris narrates her own
story, as the daughter of Mississippi sharecrop-
pers who stayed up late watching highlights
of Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and her idol,
Oscar Robertson. She grew to be 6' 3", the tallest
in her high school class, and later—in the wake
of Title IX—starred at Delta State, leading her
team to three straight national championships.
After college, Harris says in the film, “I wanted
to keep playing. But there was no place to go.”
Though New Orleans picked her in the seventh
round of the 1977 NBA draft, Harris felt she
wasn’t “good enough” and declined an invita-
tion to training camp—a decision that surely
contributed to her relative anonymity in the
decades that followed.
“She was so good she got drafted by the Jazz.
I was like, ‘Hold on, how come I never heard of
this lady?’ ” says O’Neal, who showed the film
to his basketball-playing daughter, Me’Arah, as
a means for inspiring her to greater dominance.
He calls Harris “unapologetically legendary.”
Harris died in January, at age 66. She lived
long enough to see the women’s game grow and
thrive, to witness the birth of the WNBA and to
watch the stars of today enjoy the fame, com-
mercial opportunities and career paths that were
denied to her generation. That’s what struck
former WNBA player and current Notre Dame
coach Niele Ivey when she screened the film
with her own players.
“It just shows how fortunate we are that we
had a league to play in after college,” says Ivey.
“Because so many women before us didn’t have
the opportunity.” —Howard Beck

1985 U.S. WOMEN’S NATIONAL TEAM

SOCCER

The stewardess—that’s what they were known

as then—on the Alitalia 747 f light from Milan

to New York approached the women sitting in

coach. “The pilot said there’s women’s foot-

ball players aboard,” she said, “and he wants

to meet you.”

“I’m game,” said Kim Wyant, who stood up and

took her teammate, Linda Gancitano, with her.

It was late August 1985. There were very

few women’s national soccer teams competing

around the world. The sport wasn’t part of the

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AFTER COLLEGE,
HARRIS WANTED TO KEEP
PLAYING BASKETBALL,
BUT THERE WERE FEW OPTIONS
FOR THE THREE-T IME
NATIONAL CHAMP.