Southern High Grad Lisa Harrison Honored As Hometown Hero

Lisa Harrison Rogers, a 1989 Southern High School graduate who led the Lady Trojans to a state basketball championship in 1988 and later played basketball in the WNBA, earned another distinction last week when her banner was unfurled at the school:  Hometown Hero.

Harrison, a former Kentucky Miss Basketball, Naismith Prep Player of the Year and High School Player of the Year, joined former and current Southern faculty and students to unveil “Lisa’s Louisville” on the high school’s front-facing exterior wall.

“My four years at Southern were some of the most dear to my heart,” Harrison said.  “Playing at the University of Tennessee, being a professional athlete and playing in the WNBA, it all started because of the opportunities I had here at Southern.  I should be honoring them – they’re the ones who made me who I am today.”

“This banner will serve as an inspiration to all our students that they, too, can be at the top of their game if they are willing to work very hard and develop their own gifts and talents,” said Linda Duncan, Jefferson County School Board member for District 5, which includes Southern.

After Southern, Harrison played under the late Pat Summit at the University of Tennessee, where she was a member of the 1991 NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Championship team. She had a nine-year professional basketball career, playing six of those for the Phoenix Mercury in the WBNA.  Harrison has also been inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Kentucky Coaches Hall of Fame.

“Lisa’s accomplishments on the basketball court are only part of her story,” said Southern Principal Bryce Hibbard. “She never forgot that she got her start here in Louisville, and particularly here at Southern.  She is a natural honoree for this recognition, and we are proud to call her our own.”

The school’s alumni association raised funds for the banner.

Harrison’s image hangs alongside another Southern alumnus: Phil Simms, a former NFL quarterback and two-time Super Bowl champion.  Simms graduated from the high school in 1974.