Meet Zaila Avant-garde, national Spelling Bee champ and basketball world record holder
By spelling “Murraya” correctly, Zaila Avant-garde made history Thursday by becoming the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
But the 14-year-old girl from Harvey, Louisiana, is no stranger to history. In fact, she holds several Guinness World Records — in basketball.
Her world records are for dribbling basketballs simultaneously, boasting three separate titles. The one she is most proud of, she said in her Spelling Bee profile, is dribbling six basketballs at the same time for one minute.
“For my 13th birthday, I decided that I wanted to celebrate becoming a teenager to do a Guinness World Record,” she said in a profile shared by ESPNW. “It was kind of just like rapid succession. I couldn’t keep doing one thing forever, so you just keep going and going.”
Her skills extend to the court, where she is known as one of the best eighth-grade basketball players in the country, ESPN reported.
She’s shared her highlight videos on social media, showcasing her play-making abilities.
Zaila’s aspirations include attending Harvard, playing in the WNBA and coaching in the NBA — that is, unless she works for NASA, the Associated Press reported.
“Basketball, I’m not just playing it. I’m really trying to go somewhere with it. Basketball is what I do,” Zaila told the AP. “Spelling is really a side thing I do. It’s like a little hors d’ouevre. But basketball’s like the main dish.”
Zaila spelled 18 words correctly to win the National Spelling Bee. Those words included “solidungulate,” “encephalopathy” and “querimonious.”
After spelling her winning word, she twirled and jumped in excitement as she made history. In addition to being the first African American winner, she became the first student from Louisiana to win the Spelling Bee.
She told Guinness in 2020 she hopes to be an inspiration for others.
“I think the more the achievements and triumphs of women are promoted and publicized, the more likely it is that little girls around the world will see that they can do any and everything they put their minds to.”