“If It Doesn’t Play in Peoria…”

Charlotte Lewis died prematurely at age fifty-two. Lewis is not a household name in high school or intercollegiate basketball, yet she was a pioneer in many respects on the playground, in a high school gymnasium, a collegiate fieldhouse, the 1976 Olympics, and the Women’s Basketball League. Interviews with Lewis, her coaches, and her teammates provide the primary resources for this paper. As one of four African-American women on the inaugural women’s Olympic basketball team, as well as one of only seventy-six women to ever wear the Team USA basketball jersey, interest in Lewis should be more intense. Lewis deserves a louder, unified voice in how the history of women’s basketball in Illinois and the nation are remembered. Few have experienced the breadth of competition and the spectrum of success lived by Charlotte Lewis.