Zaila Avant-garde walks onto the basketball court with the kind of confidence an NBA player might exude, but the Whitney Houston shirt she sports alludes to the light-hearted nature that follows this 12-year-old girl wherever she goes.

From the moment she walks into the Oakdale Gym, in her hometown of Harvey, Louisiana, Zaila is immediately greeted with hugs and words of congratulations. This hometown celebrity recently brought home a national title.

But not for her beloved sport of basketball.

Zaila is the 2020 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion, the first African-American girl to win the competition in its 96-year history. The winning word she spelled was murraya, a word that defines a citrus-type flower found in the Pacific.

Taking home this national title, though, was no accident for this quiet, humble pre-teen who would rather spend her days on the basketball court instead of preparing for spelling bees.

“I knew the last word immediately. You can’t strategize your way through all the word,” she explained.

A movie she watched also helped.

“I also watched a lot of Lost In Translation with Bill Murray. So, like, murraya, I always remembered the word as Bill Murray with a, ‘ya,’ on the end,” she added.

In the last two weeks, this 12-year-old student has been on Jimmy Kimmel, made an appearance at the ESPN Awards, and she’s even flown to Manhattan to play strategy games with the staff of the New York Times.

She has logged thousands of miles in the air, and yet, her favorite part of the last few weeks has nothing to do with the notoriety.

“Traveling on the planes that have TVs, I really like that. I’m really into airplane TVs,” Zaila said as she cracked a small smile.

None of this happened by accident. Zaila actually prepared for the Scripps Spelling Bee by prepping with other spellers from previous years.

As for her future plans?

Zaila will turn 13 in a few weeks, meaning her spelling bee days are over. But she’s hoping to someday play basketball at Harvard and has aspirations to work at NASA.

NEW ORLEANS —

What a post-championship whirlwind it's been for the spelling bee champ!

Two weeks ago, Zaila Avant-garde claimed the Scripps National Spelling Bee Championship, making history in the process as the first African American winner.

"I just generally remember being super happy, I was just really elated. I couldn't quite believe it," Avant-garde said.

Avant-garde's historic win generated a wave of worldwide support, and it's certainly been a busy two-week victory lap.

"A really hectic flying around to different places, and there's been so many people asking for interviews, it's been so overwhelming but it's been pretty fun," she said.

From network appearances on the "Today" show, and the ESPYs, this impressive 14-year-old now has a global following.

"Like walking around and so many people recognizing me, and their happiness to see me," she said. "Also getting to talk to Malala, if I didn't mention that, was super cool to me."

A festive homecoming parade in Harvey also drew hundreds of supporters.

"The parade was really fun. It was a bit awkward as I was asked to dance a second line. Because I'm a bit awkward about dancing and stuff. But it was really fun and stuff, just being there and seeing the Zulus, and their big costumes and stuff. I did not expect it to be such a big affair."

And with the championship now in the bag, Avant-garde can focus once again on her basketball skills, something that helped her prepare for the Scripps competition.

"The mental ability it kinda takes to be able to control all those different balls and stuff, like really helped with like the mind part of spelling and stuff. Which I guess is the whole part of spelling, like the whole part of spelling is the mind. But I definitely think that played a big part in it."

Avant-garde will also resume basketball practice with her New Orleans AAU team this week.

Zaila Avant-garde has already made history as the first African American winner of the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, and now one university is offering her a full ride.

Louisiana State University president William F. Tate IV tweeted Saturday that Avant-garde's academic performance reflected scholarship first and modeled intellectual excellence. He offered her a full scholarship to LSU.

The eighth-grader from Louisiana spelled the word murraya correctly to win the Bee.

Besides her academic success, the Associated Press reported the 14-year-old is a basketball prodigy who holds three Guinness World Records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously.

Michelle Kaufman at WRTV first reported this story.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. —

Whether dribbling a basketball or identifying obscure Latin or Greek roots, Zaila Avant-garde doesn't show much stress. Now she has become the first African American winner in the 96-year history of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The 14-year-old from Harvey, Louisiana, breezed to the championship on Thursday night. The only previous Black winner was also the only champ from outside the United States: Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998.

Zaila said she was fully aware that people were watching her and dreaming of following in her footsteps.

"I'm hoping that within the next few years, I can see a little bit of an influx of African Americans, and not many Hispanic people, either, so I'm hoping to see them there, too," she said.

Zaila has described spelling as a side hobby, although she routinely practiced for seven hours a day. She is a basketball prodigy who hopes to play some day in the WNBA and holds three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously.

Zaila twirled and leaped with excitement after spelling the winning word "murraya," a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees.

Only one word gave her any real trouble, "nepeta," a genus of Old World mints, and she jumped even higher when she got that one right than she did when she took the trophy.

"I've always struggled with that word. I've heard it a lot of times. I don't know, there's just some words, for a speller, I just get them and I can't get them right," she said. "I even knew it was a genus of plants. I know what you are and I can't get you."

This year's bee was different from any that came before because of the coronavirus pandemic, which led to the cancellation of last year's bee. It was moved from its usual location just outside Washington to an ESPN campus in Florida, and only the top 11 spellers competed in person. Previous rounds were held virtually.

Only spellers' immediate families were allowed to attend, in contrast to the hundreds of fans and former spellers who normally pack the bee ballroom. There was, however, one high-profile fan in attendance: first lady Jill Biden.

The competition itself also was different. In 2019, Scripps' word list was no match for the deep and talented field, and the bee ended in an eight-way tie.

This year, five of the 11 finalists were gone after the first round, and Zaila emerged as the champion in just under two hours. Had the bee reached the two-hour mark, a new lightning-round tiebreaker would have determined the winner.

Zaila will take home more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. She used the $10,000 prize from an online bee she won last year to pay for lessons with her coach, 2015 Scripps runner-up Cole Shafer-Ray, who charges $130 an hour — part of a burgeoning industry of private tutors who work with most of the top spellers.

Chaitra Thummala, a 12-year-old from Frisco, Texas — another student of Shafer-Ray — was runner-up. She has two years of eligibility remaining and instantly becomes one of next year's favorites.

The only previous Black winner of the bee was Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica in 1998. Zaila also breaks a streak dating back to 2008 during which at least one champion or co-champion was of South Asian descent.