Jazz draft woman in '77 In the seventh round of the 1977 NBA draft, the New Orleans Jazz selected the best player in college basketball. Women's college basketball. With the 137th overall pick, the Jazz drafted Lusia Harris of Delta State in Mississippi. A 6-foot-3 center, she was the most dominant player in the game. A three-time All-American, Harris averaged 25.9 points and 14.5 rebounds during her career. She shot 64 percent from the field. Harris was drafted only one spot behind a forward named Alvin Scott, who ended up playing eight seasons for the Phoenix Suns. In all, 36 men were taken after the Jazz drafted Harris, who led Delta State to a record of 109-6 and three straight AIAW national championships in an era when women did not receive athletic scholarships. Told by a reporter in Mississippi that she had been picked by the Jazz, Harris said, "Drafted by a men's team?" Obviously, the attention-hungry Jazz drafted Harris as a publicity stunt. Years later, however, coach and general manager Frank Layden only half-jokingly said Harris was "better than anybody [New Orleans] had at the time, other than Pete Maravich." In another twist to the episode, Harris was pregnant at the time, which prompte Jazz officials to suggest they owned the future draft rights to her unborn child. "We got two players for the price of one," Layden said. Harris never played in the NBA but, in 1992, she was the first women inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Today, Harris is a school teacher in her home state of Mississippi. --

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