We all know that our man Shaq is in a LOT of different businesses. Connections to restaurant chains, cruise ship companies, and much more. Well, now the big man can add another super-cool line to his resume: Oscar winner.
Even though O’Neal is pretty funny in some of those TV commercials, and he’s had a small number of movie appearances, this Oscar is for something he did behind the camera, behind the scenes. A short film he helped produce – “The Queen of Basketball” – has won the Academy Award for best short subject documentary.
The documentary is the story of Lusia Harris. Up until the release of the film, she’d been relatively unknown in the world of basketball, even though she has several “firsts” to her name and legacy.
With the award, O’Neal becomes the second member of the Los Angeles Lakers to win a golden statue. Four years ago, longtime teammate Kobe Bryant also won an Oscar. Kobe’s was for Best Animated Short Film in 2018. Along with filmmaker Glen Keane, the pair created the short called “Dear Basketball.” It featured music by John Williams, of Star Wars fame. Bryant did the narration of a poem he wrote on the occasion of his retirement from the game in 2015.
For “The Queen of Basketball,” Shaq teamed up with Golden State star Stephen Curry as executive producers and top promoters of the 22-minute film. Sadly, the film arrived just two months after Harris’ passing. Filmmaker Ben Proudfoot was the director of the film, which offered quite an insight into Harris’ contribution to the game.
“If there is anyone out there who doubts that there is an audience for female athletes and questions whether their stories are valuable or entertaining or important … let this Academy Award be the answer,” Proudfoot said at the award ceremony in Los Angeles.
Harris is an inductee to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as is O’Neal. But even Shaq said he had to be schooled on who Harris was. “I didn’t know who she was at first,” O’Neal said earlier this month. Few did.
Click here for a clip of Stephen A. Smith talking about the Queen of Basketball on ESPN.
In college, Harris helped Delta State University win three straight national championships in the 1970s and earned a silver medal for the United States at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. She actually scored the very first bucket in women’s Olympic basketball history.
She was so good that she was actually drafted by the (then in New Orleans) Jazz in the seventh round of the 1977 NBA draft. Harris was pregnant at the time and unfortunately never pursued the idea of trying to make the team. How cool would that have been?
Hopefully the film will be available on Netflix or one of the other streaming services. It will be great to see Harris’ influence on the game, and see her properly remembered.