Monday Motivation: Lusia Harris

Give 'Em Hell

I often draw parallels between elite athletes and founders and for good reason. I truly believe the motivation, relentless drive, discipline, overcoming obstacles required for both are fundamentally similar.

“So that morning in 1962 I told myself: Let everyone else call your idea crazy . . . just keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where “there” is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

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So for this week’s Monday Motivation post, I wanted to share the story of Lusia Harris - the first woman to score in the Olympics (1976), the only woman ever drafted by an NBA team (’77) and the first female college player inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame (’92). Sadly, she died 18th January 2022 in Mississippi. She was 66.

As a child growing up in rural Mississippi, Lusia “Lucy” Harris was born in Minter City, Mississippi, to Ethel Harris and Willie Harris, a sharecropper in the cotton fields. Lucy and her siblings were all into basketball which, at that time, was predominantly a men’s game… but that didn’t deter Lucy.