For a decade, Charlotte Adams made a living traveling the highways and biways of America, shooting and spinning a basketball to the delight of thousands.

It was a hard road, but one that ultimately led to the hall of fame.

Adams, a longtime Vicksburg resident, was honored this week when the All-American Red Heads traveling team she was a part of from 1967-77 was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The Red Heads, the only team selected in this year’s Hall of Fame class, will be inducted Sept. 7 in Springfield, Mass., along with 11 more of the game’s greatest players and coaches.

“It’s kind of hard to explain. It just feels mighty good,” said Adams, a 65-year-old Bogue Chitto native who lived in Vicksburg for nearly 40 years. She moved to Brookhaven in 2006. “It’s an organization that lasted 50 years. Just to know the organization that I played for is nominated, it’s an honor.”

The All-American Red Heads were a women’s barnstorming team founded in Missouri in 1936. The team was akin to a female version of the Harlem Globetrotters, in that they’d play local men’s teams in the cities where they stopped and mix competitive games with showmanship. The Red Heads even wore striped red, white and blue uniforms and performed various basketball skills and tricks at halftime, just like the Globetrotters.

The Red Heads name was a gimmick. The wife of original team owner C.M. Olson owned a string of beauty shops in Missouri and Arkansas. Doyle Olson would dye players’ hair red, if needed. The name and gimmick continued after Orwell Moore bought the team in 1955.

At their peak in the 1960s and 70s, there were three teams of Red Heads on the road at any given time, playing as many as 200 games a year. They boasted a winning percentage over .900 against the locally-recruited men’s teams they faced and once won 96 straight games in as many days.

Adams, a 6-foot forward, joined the team in 1967. In an era where scholarship opportunities for women basketball players were limited, she jumped at the chance to make a career of the game she loved.

“I enjoyed playing basketball when I was in high school,” Adams said. “I loved it with the Red Heads because there were so many things you could do with a basketball.”

Among the things Adams could do were score and spin a ball. She scored more than 26,000 points in seven seasons of competitive games. At halftime, she’d spin multiple basketballs at once and shoot free throws from her knees to entertain the crowd.

It wasn’t all fun and games, though. The men’s players the Red Heads faced didn’t always show good sportsmanship when being beaten by the ladies. Adams and the other Red Heads wore their share of battle scars.

“We had our times, but some teams would be very physical. When that happened we had to back off and let them go. We were brought in to entertain people, and we had another game the next night,” Adams said.

Adams’ career with the Red Heads included one season as a player-coach, and three more as the team’s coach, bus driver and business manager. She retired in 1977 and moved to Vicksburg, where she worked at International Paper until retiring from that job in 2006.

In those years, the Red Heads faded into history. The team disbanded in 1986. It was hardly forgotten, though.

The team was showcased in an exhibit at the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn., when it opened in 1999 — a cardboard cutout of Adams was featured prominently — and some of their artifacts remain on display

Now, they’re once again rubbing shoulders with men’s players at the Naismith Hall of Fame, which honors basketball players from around the world. Adams said being part of a legacy like that is something to be proud of.

“Any time we get recognized, it’s a big honor. For me and the organization,” she said. “We were trailblazers for women’s sports.”