BOSTON, Mass. – UMass Boston athletics continues to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of Title IX throughout the 2022-23 academic year. During the month of February, as part of Black History Month, Beacons Athletics will be celebrating the student-athletes and coaches that both exemplify these two monumental movements.

One of the most influential coaches and leaders in the city of Boston, Alfred Harris was the first black women's coach in UMass Boston history. In 1980, Harris not only became UMass Boston's first Women's Basketball coach but she was also the first female head coach at UMass Boston for any sport.

In her first three campaigns, Harris made an immediate impact on the scene by guiding the Beacons to three consecutive winning seasons while compiling a 40-18 mark. She would finish her coaching tenure at UMass Boston with 44 wins which ranks second most in program-history while her 15-win season in 1981-82 boasts the highest single-season winning percentage at.714 (15-6) and remains tied for the most single-season wins by any UMass Boston women's hoops team.

To this day, Harris is still the only woman to ever to coach in the prestigious Boston Shootout. After coaching at UMass Boston, Harris went on to become administratively involved in several local organizations including the Boston Parks & Recreation Department as former Deputy Commissioner, the Project Director for Harvard School of Public Health's program "Play Across Boston", as well as the Project Director for Northeastern Universities "Sport in Society". She was the recipient of Boston Municipal Research Bureau Henry L. Shattuck Award for Public Service as well as an inductee in WCVB Good Sports Hall of Fame.

She was inducted into the UMass Boston Athletics Hall of Fame in 2011.