CLEVELAND, Miss. - The year was 1974. President Nixon became the first United States president to resign from office and Arthur Fry invented the post-it note. Magic eight ball toys were all the rage, and "Blazing Saddles" and "The Towering Inferno" were the highest grossing major motion pictures at the box office.  

In a small town at the heart of the Mississippi Delta, a new attraction had burst onto the scene. The Delta State University Lady Statesmen basketball program, which had been disbanded some four decades earlier, was going into its second season of play since the program had been reinstated in 1972. Coaching legend and hometown hero Lily Margaret Wade had just led the Lady Statesmen to a 16-2 record in the 1973-74 season, and as the program moved into its second year under the tutelage of Wade, Delta State was primed to make a run.
 
Wade began her basketball endeavors when she joined the Cleveland High School basketball team in the mid-1920's. When her playing career at CHS came to an end, Wade moved right down the road and settled into a standout role as a member of the Lady Statesmen basketball program. 
 
As a sophomore and a junior, Wade was tabbed as the captain of the team and garnered All-Conference recognition and team most valuable player honors as she helped DSU to a 28-5-2 record over the course of her career.

In 1932, however, Wade's career in a Delta State uniform came to a screeching halt when they disbanded the program. DSU officials said that "Intercollegiate basketball could not be defended on sound grounds." The schools' leaders felt that the game was too tough for young ladies, and Wade and her teammates protested the decision by burning their uniforms. 
  Wade would go on to graduate from Delta State and moved into a career in coaching. Wade spent time at Marietta High School and Belden High School before returning home to coach the Cleveland High School Wildcats. Beginning in 1935 and running through the 1954 season at CHS, Wade amassed a 453-89-6 record while collecting 14 Bolivar County Championships and three runner-up finishes in the state championships.
 
Fast forward to 1972 and Wade, who had become a legendary high school coach in the Delta and was working as an instructor at Delta State, was selected by the university to take over the program that she had so passionately been a part of as a player. 
 
Having never coached five-on-five basketball, having been away from the coaching ranks for 14 years, and resurrecting a team that had been dormant for 40 years prior, Wade guided the Delta State University women's basketball team to a 13-1 regular season (including an undefeated 8-0 mark at Walter Sillers Coliseum. Delta State then defeated Mississippi, 76-52, and Mississippi College, 89-78, to capture the Mississippi State Championship. 

The Lady Statesmen advanced to the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Region III tournament and handled Tuskegee to open play at the regional. DSU was then defeated by Mercer University and subsequently beat Auburn 78-58 to finish third and close out the 1973-74 season at 16-2. 
 
What transpired over the next three seasons for Delta State's program is one of the greatest runs at any level of men's or women's collegiate basketball in any three-year span in the sport's history.
  Delta State came out of the gates in the 1974-75 season torching the opposition, averaging 101.7 points per game in their first four games. The Lady Statesmen rattled off a perfect 19 wins in 19 games in the regular season, knocked off Mississippi and Mississippi College in the state tournament for their second consecutive State Championship, and made quick work of Auburn, Mississippi University for Women and West Georgia in the AIAW Region III tournament.
 
Moving into the AIAW National Tournament in Harrisonburg, Virginia, the Lady Statesmen opened with a two-point, 77-75 overtime victory over Federal City before defeating Tennessee Tech and Southern Connecticut to earn a berth in the championship game. The Immaculata College "Mighty Macs", who had built their own women's basketball dynasty, were the only barrier between DSU and a perfect season.
 
The Lady Statesmen ended the three-year reign of Immaculata as AIAW champions, knocking off the Mighty Macs 90-81 to cap an undefeated 28-0 season. DSU got 32 points and 18 rebounds from Kodak All-American Lusia Harris, and had five of the six players that played in the title game score in double-figures to capture the school's first national championship.

Kodak All-American and national tournament most valuable player Lusia Harris, Delta State's 6-3 center, led the Lady Statesmen in averaging 25.3 points and 14.3 rebounds during the year, while their dynamic 4-11 point guard Debbie Brock (who was the smallest player in the national tournament that year) knocked down 84.4% of her free throws on the year.

Second leading scorer Cornelia Ward added 15.6 points per game for Delta State's offensive attack, and team captain Wanda Hairston averaged 12.4 points per game and made 56.2% of her shot attempts. Ramona Von Boeckman had 159 assists and averaged 5.7 per game, while adding 10.8 points per game as one of DSU's most consistent players. 
 
In 1975-76, Delta State picked up right where they had left off a year prior, blowing through their first 22-games without a blemish before falling on the road to Immaculata, whom they had beaten at home earlier in the year. DSU again advanced straight through the Mississippi AIAW state tournament for the third straight year and won three more games at the AIAW Region III tournament as the host site to garner a spot in the AIAW national tournament.
 
Delta State made easy work of Penn State (88-46) and Baylor (97-55) before edging out Wayland Baptist 61-60 to make the championship final and square off in another showdown with Immaculata. Lusia Harris led the country in scoring at 31.2 points per game, and earned another tournament MVP award behind 27 points and 18 rebounds, as the Lady Statesmen's 69-64 win capped a 33-1 season and clinched the program's second consecutive AIAW national championship. 
 
It was business as usual for the Lady Statesmen in 1976-1977, as Delta State went 22-3 in the regular season and clinched the Mississippi state tournament and AIAW Region III tournament titles for the third consecutive year to earn a spot in the AIAW national tournament in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
 
DSU rattled off four wins in as many days against Minnesota, Southern Connecticut, Tennessee and then Louisiana State in the championship game to secure the program's third national championship in three years under Wade. 
 
During their three-year championship run, the Lady Statesmen tallied a 93-4 record, which included a 51-game win streak and a perfect 39-0 mark at Walter Sillers Coliseum. Harris and Hairston's class amassed a 109-6 record in their four years playing at Delta State University. 

Delta State's three-consecutive AIAW national titles were achieved with the same starting lineup, as Lusia-Harris, Wanda Hairston, Debbie Brock, Ramona Von Boekman and Cornelia Ward were college basketball's original "Fab Five," long before the Michigan Wolverines and Jalen Rose took the men's game by storm in 1991. Eight Lady Statesmen players were named All-Americans during that three-year stretch, including the entire starting five in 1976-77. Wade was also named the Kellogg's National Coach of the Year in 1976 and 1977. 

Lusia Harris-Stewart, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, was the first dominant player in the modern era in women's basketball. Harris garnered three Kodak All-American honors and was the AIAW tournament MVP three times. She scored the first points in women's Olympic basketball competition, led the United States national team to second place in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada, and even had the honor of being taken in the 1977 National Basketball Association draft by the Utah Jazz. 

Harris-Stewart ended her Delta State career with 15 school records, including points scored (2,981), rebounds (1,662) and field goals (1,267). She scored a career-high 58 points in 1975-76, her 58 points against Tennessee Tech, and tallied 47 points against Queens College in Madison Square Garden, which was the most points scored by any man or woman, college or pro, that year in that venue.  

Delta State's meteoric rise in the mid-1970's was a tremendous boost for women's basketball and played a huge role in modeling a future for the women's game at the collegiate level. With the introduction of Title IX in 1972 and increased opportunities and resources being allocated to women's sports across the country, the women of the Delta State University women's basketball program proved that there was no reason that they should be afforded fewer opportunities than their male counterparts. 

DSU's 1974-75, 1975-76 and 1976-77 Lady Statesmen squads were named the recipient of the 2017 Women's Basketball Hall of Fame's Trailblazer Award on Feb. 12 for their efforts in helping the growth and development of women's basketball at the collegiate level.

The Lady Statesmen's nearly unduplicated success from 1974-1977 etched Delta State's place in women's college basketball history, paving the way for the game as we know it today and putting Delta State and Cleveland, Mississippi on the national basketball map; a place where they remain to this day.