Tiffany Lucci Beat The Odds

Tiffany Lucci grew up in a sprawling house on Sierra Drive in the lush flats of Beverly Hills. From an outside perspective, it was a peaceful, luxurious lifestyle. But unfortunately, this picturesque life was yet another example to not judge a book by its cover. Tiffany, along with her three other quadruplet sisters Madison, Bianca and Paris, were consistently being physically and emotionally abused by their father. The damage was horrific, including broken arms, bloody foreheads, constant bruising, starvation and emotional neglect. The situation was untenable, with the Lucci’s mother eventually abandoning her children when one day she claimed she was going out Christmas shopping, only to never return again. The Beverly Hills community was vaguely aware of the girls’ situation, but on the rare occasions people reached out to help, their father threatened them.

The abuse continued, until one day, Tiffany’s sister, Madison came to Hawthorne middle school with a noticeable gash streaked across her forehead. When her teacher noticed the wound and discovered that Madison’s father had hit her, school officials immediately called the Beverly Hills police, who then yanked the girls out of school and evacuated them from their house for the last time. Ever since that whirlwind of a day, the rest of Tiffany’s childhood has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Reflecting on the beginning of a tumultuous life, Tiffany concedes she never knew why her father treated his four girls so abhorrently, and while that curiosity will never flicker, she’s ready to move on. 

“I feel like we deserved to know why he treated us the way he did, but I think something must have damaged him in his background so he had to damage every woman and every little girl that came his way,” Tiffany said. “I don’t hate my dad, but I just wish he was more confident in having us and had loved us more. I wish him nothing but the best, but this is my journey and I’m not going to let him ruin it.”

When Tiffany entered the foster care system, she was instantly at risk of being just another statistic. The inherently chaotic and unstable lifestyle of foster care kids leads to a 54% high school graduation rate, as well as a 3% college graduation rate. The odds were severely stacked against her. The turmoil of attending eight to 10 high schools (she lost count) and living in a dozen foster care homes was taxing. Attending so many schools made it difficult to learn as well as keep a job. Other students would also poke fun at her just because she was a product of the foster system and had no parents.

“It was like the ghetto,” Tiffany said. “Sometimes our foster parents wouldn’t feed us, and we were separated at some points.”

Amid the constant chaos, there were spurts of hope. Tiffany and her three sisters finally landed with a stable foster care mother, Nadine Jett, a successful attorney in the Palos Verdes area. Jett was the perfect mother for the girls; she was never too strict or too lenient, but she taught the right principles. When the girls were younger, Jett would give them each $20 dollars for a weekly allowance. When the girls would spend most of it on snacks and junk food, Jett taught them how to be more prudent with their money. For a group of girls who were starting to suspect many foster parents were in it for the money, they realized they had finally found a stable and wholesome situation.

“We got really lucky when she took us in,” Tiffany said. “I swear it was God’s way of telling us we’d been saved. Nothing’s ever handed to us. We work for everything we have.”

Tiffany also turned to basketball to let out all her emotions waiting to be unleashed. From an early age, she played in the Beverly Hills Basketball League even though her father refused to pay the fee (other adults pitched in). Tiffany loved the game dearly, even though she concedes it was difficult to be one of the only kids who did not have their parents cheering for them on the sidelines. The game was one of her only constants throughout a childhood of consistent changes and instabilities.

“Playing basketball made me forget about everything, made me feel like I was in my own world,” Tiffany said. “I felt that confidence, it felt good to be away from all the negativity and the problems and the general sadness of going through the foster care system.”

She worked on her game constantly, and was dominant in her 2016-17 season at Los Angeles Harbor College, averaging a team high 22 points and 8 rebounds while earning First Team All-South Coast Conference. The joy did not end there.

“And after basketball games, when people come up to compliment you, people who know what you’re going through, it’s one of the best feelings in the world,” Tiffany said.

Tiffany was not only a talented basketball player, but also one of Albert Turner’s favorite players he ever coached.

“Coaching Tiffany was one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Turner, the head coach at Los Angeles Harbor, said. “She was such a fun, loving girl. I really enjoyed coaching her and I still miss it to this day.”

Coach Turner didn’t stop there.

“She was so playful and serious at the same time. She made you think why you wanted to be a coach. She was so respectful. She’s the kind of player you always wanted to be around. She brought excitement to the girls, she’s a people person. Man I could go on and on.” 

Tiffany’s success on the court led to a more engaging classroom experience, leaving Trayce Jones, who taught a counseling class, highly impressed with Tiffany.

“When you've had a rough beginning when adults were not invested in your success, to continue to seek an education that will help you build your life is admirable,” Jones said. “I’m humbled by it.”

As Tiffany enters her senior year of college at Westcliff University in Irvine, she’s started to discover ways how she can help other people who go through the foster system. She’s on track to receive a Business Administration degree and use it to open a business for the youth in the system nationwide to implement strategies for them to use sports as an escape and get through school.

As Tiffany prepares her foray into true adulthood, she looks back at her past with a new wisdom gained from all her experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant.

“I learned to never give up, always keep fighting,” Tiffany said. “There are people that care and will do anything to help you succeed. Don’t give up, it might be hard, the foster system is so hard, but once you keep fighting, you won’t be another statistic.”