Penn Charter’s Aleah Snead comes from a family of athletes, and now she’s following in their steps as a St. Joe’s recruit

Penn Charter forward Aleah Snead FaceTimed her mother when she received her first college offer from St. Joseph’s. Snead, a sophomore at the time, shed tears of excitement, overjoyed that her hard work had paid off.

“I was just relieved,” Snead said. “What I was doing was working, and I was showing that to other people.”

After racking up a number of scholarship offers, the incoming senior announced her commitment to St. Joe’s in March. Coming from a family of athletes who played at the collegiate level, Snead had the guidance and resources to thrive during her basketball journey. Now, the 5-foot-11 forward is ready to lead Penn Charter to a championship one last time.

Snead thought her parents were being dramatic when they told her that the minute she stepped on a campus, she’d know if a school was the right place for her. But after visiting Hawk Hill in March, Snead felt an intuition that it was home.

And her actual home in Northeast Philly was only 30 minutes away, which made her decision that much easier, knowing her family can visit and watch her play. She has a close-knit relationship with her family that has bonded through sports.

At 8 years old, Snead put a ball in her hands for the first time. Her brother, Jalen Snead, who was 15 months older than Aleah, and her twin sister, Amyah, would head to Vogt Recreation Center to play pickup games with the neighborhood kids.

Her parents, DeVonne and Gerald Snead, wanted their children to get exposed to different sports early on. Being former college athletes themselves — Gerald played basketball, and DeVonne played volleyball — at Fairmont State University, they knew sports could provide other opportunities, like getting a paid-for education.

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“My parents always wanted me to play sports,” Snead said. “I did everything; soccer, dance, basketball. I did all the sports, but I stuck with basketball.”

The summer of sixth grade, Snead joined the Mid-Atlantic Magic, an AAU team, and played with the group for two years. She felt a bit overwhelmed at first, it being the first travel basketball team she played for.

Between working with new teammates, practicing four times a week, and traveling to away games, her relationship toward the game intensified. By her seventh-grade year, she switched to Triple Threat Hoops, an AAU team based out of Morris County, N.J. Snead realized then that she wanted to take basketball to another level.

“It taught me how to play a game not like a robot,” Snead said. “I felt like I could be freer, and I saw that I can actually play against these girls. On the other side of that, I was learning how to play the way I wanted to play.”

Besides being a gritty defender, Snead could shoot from midrange and expand out to the three-point line and beyond. She started to catch the attention of high school coaches, like Penn Charter’s Joe Maguire, while playing for Triple Threat Hoops and her team at Gilbert Spruance School.

After an AAU game, Maguire spoke with then-14-year-old Snead about how Penn Charter would be the right fit for her, emphasizing the school’s high level of academics and being an immediate impact player on the varsity.

“She’s able to cover centers and she’s able to cover point guards,” Maguire said. “She can really cover anybody on the court, whether it’s buffer size, length, athleticism, or speed. I really like her determination to kind of shut down any other person.”

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Snead was deciding between Archbishop Ryan, where her brother Jalen was a basketball standout, or Imhotep Charter. She ultimately decided on Penn Charter because of the familiarity with the team and the chance to play with her best friend Kelsey Bess.

In her first game with Penn Charter, Snead made herself known, scoring 26 points and meshing well with the seniors. The competitiveness she brought each game showed the older girls the buy-in she had to the program, which helped gain their trust.

“When she came in, we had an older group of seniors kind of knowing that she was going to play alongside them,” Maguire said. “As her role expanded, she understood when we needed her to score and when we needed her to set up her teammates.”

Snead learned by working with the older girls to not get caught up in her mistakes to the point that it carries over into the next play. She also said her confidence grew. When she was hesitant or nervous in the game, her teammates always reassured her to have fun because that’s when she’ll perform at her best.

The reassurance showed in her performance on the court. Following her sophomore season, the forward started to rack up college offers from Penn, Columbia, La Salle, Stony Brook, Drexel, Rhode Island, and Fordham.

After having multiple conversations with St. Joe’s head coach Cindy Griffin and her staff about her place at Hawk Hill, Snead felt the program was the best place that could develop her into the elite player she wants to be and achieve her goal of potentially going professional.

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“I always felt like they reassured me and my parents that I’ll be OK at college,” Snead said. “People go off to college, and they might deal with mental issues or they don’t know if they fit in with the coaches. ... I always felt like they really were telling me that I was going to be OK.”

For now, Snead, along with her senior teammates — Bess, Bella Toomey, who is committed to Fairleigh Dickinson, and Gracie Shoup, who is committed to Ohio State for lacrosse — seek redemption heading into this season after losing, 51-50, to Westtown in the PAISAA girls’ basketball final last season.

“She’s a great teammate,” Maguire said. “That will translate over immediately for her into the college game. She could impact a game in so many ways. She helps her team win games.”