Rasheed Wallace once funded a girls’ basketball team. Years later, it helped Justin Edwards become an All-American.

University City High School was more than seven miles — and two subway lines — from Simon Gratz High, but Rasheed Wallace and his buddies still found their way to West Philly in the early 1990s to watch girls’ basketball.

That was enough for Yolanda Laney, who played at University City in the 1970s, to know Wallace enjoyed the girls’ game. And that only became more evident when she spotted Wallace that summer at Temple, watching girls play in the Developmental Basketball League before he suited up next door in the Sonny Hill League.

Then Wallace — who graduated from Gratz in 1993 as the No. 1 player in the nation, attended North Carolina, and played 16 years in the NBA — took his appreciation a step further in 2001 by helping fund Philadelphia’s first AAU team for inner-city Black girls.

“To me, it said so much,” Laney said of the $5,000 check Wallace wrote. “He didn’t have to do it, but he did do it. He recognized girls’ basketball.”

Wallace’s donation helped start the DBL Phoenix, an AAU team coached by Laney that ran for 10 summers. The Phoenix secured Division I scholarships for 57 girls, provided the players with needed exposure, and covered their expenses when they traveled to tournaments around the country.

But Wallace’s check, unbeknownst to him in June 2001, did even more. It paved the way for Imhotep Charter’s Justin Edwards, the current No. 1 boys’ player in the nation and the first Public League player since Wallace to be named a McDonald’s All American.

Edwards’ mother, Ebony Twiggs, was one of the Public League stars on that first DBL Phoenix team. Wallace’s donation helped keep her basketball dream burning. Years later, the former University City High star passed her love of the game to her son. And now Edwards is headed for the University of Kentucky as the city’s best high school player since Wallace.

A donation 22 years ago helped lay the foundation of a career that seems ready to take off.

“That’s crazy,” Twiggs said. “I didn’t even know that. It’s just so crazy. That’s amazing. Everything is just coming full circle. This is so crazy to me.”

» READ MORE: Justin Edwards is Philly’s top high school player in 30 years. His mom worked two jobs to keep his dream alive.

Lurline Jones and Ina Newman, two legendary Public League coaches, started the Developmental Basketball League in 1973 with the intent to deliver the same summer basketball experience for girls as the boys received in the Sonny Hill League.

The DBL played at Temple’s Pearson Hall while Sonny Hill ran at McGonigle Hall. The competition was just as solid.

After nearly 30 years, it was time for something more. Michael Horsey, who founded the Phoenix, was upset with the way his daughter felt on an AAU team in the suburbs. So he decided in 2001 to launch his own program for Black girls.

“I called Rasheed,” said Horsey, Wallace’s accountant while he was in the NBA. “He said, ‘Man, you have to start your own jawn.’ And that’s when it happened. Then I realized the impact that it could have.”

The first Phoenix team became a Public League all-star squad as Twiggs was joined by University City teammate Khadija Bowens, Franklin Learning Center’s Chanel Ross, Bodine’s Samara Speakes, and Engineering & Science’s Aquisha Cahoe. Laney, one of the Public League’s all-time players, agreed to coach.

A rival AAU director tried to keep players from joining the Phoenix by saying they wouldn’t have any money to travel even if they did win some games. But he did not know that Wallace and other NBA players like Ray Allen and Cuttino Mobley were footing the bill.

Laney grew up in Germantown and played at Cheyney, where she was an All-American after leading the HBCU to the 1982 national title game. She wanted the AAU team to provide inner-city girls with the same opportunities she had.

Last week, Dawn Staley coached an NCAA Tournament game while wearing a Cheyney jersey and talked about her memories of playing for Laney in the DBL. Laney, Twiggs said, was a mentor to the girls on the Phoenix just as she was years earlier for Staley.

“By them coming from the inner city, their parents couldn’t afford loans. I was trying to get them scholarships at DI or DII institutions where the schools would pay for their education,” Laney said. “My whole focus was to train them up to get an education and go to school for free and get a degree. That was the whole purpose of the Developmental Basketball League. It wasn’t just about developing basketball players, it was about developing student-athletes as well as training them the same way I was in college with the experience I had under Coach [C. Vivian] Stringer at Cheyney. Everything I learned, I imparted to them.

“Come in the gym, no nonsense, let’s work; let’s go after it; let’s get your scholarship.”

» READ MORE: Yolanda, Betnijah Laney pay two-generation tribute to C. Vivian Stringer

The Phoenix didn’t just give Philly girls exposure, it proved that they could hold their own. They won the AAU Mid-Atlantic tournament, which sent the team to Walt Disney World for the 2001 national championship.

They rented 15-passenger vans and drove through the night to Florida for a road trip they still talk about all these years later. And the girls didn’t have to pay thanks to donations like Wallace’s.

“We got to travel and play against some of the best competition. I feel like that team was like the female version of what Team Final is for the boys,” said Twiggs of the AAU team her son played for.

They stopped at historic sites in Virginia, the South of the Border roadside attraction in South Carolina, and rest stops along the way.

The Phoenix played the tournament with just seven players as Twiggs, who had surgery on her tailbone, and others were sidelined by injuries. Her old teammates still give her grief not being able to play. The girls from Philly still finished in fourth place.

“If they had Twiggs, they would’ve won the national championship,” Horsey said. “That’s how good they were.”

Twiggs was the MVP of the 2000 Public League championship, winning the award on the same court, Temple’s Liacouras Center, where her son later won back-to-back Public League championship game MVPs. She is now known as the mom of the city’s best player as Edwards is already pegged as a 2024 NBA lottery pick. But Twiggs, who played professionally overseas, was once known for her own game.

“Ebony had a direct impact on the growth of basketball as we see it today,” Horsey said. “Mom was good.”

Wallace’s NBA career is remembered as much for his run-ins with officials as it was for his four All-Star selections and NBA championship. But to those who know him, he’s much more than the guy who taught everyone that the ball does not lie.

His donation years ago to the DBL Phoenix was no surprise. That was just ‘Sheed, the guy who started an AAU program in Hunting Park and held a free basketball camp every summer.

“People don’t really know him,” Horsey said. “But people around here know him.”

“He was the first one who did something with the girls with a donation,” Laney said. “Rasheed was the first professional male athlete that I can remember who gave a donation to the DBL for the girls.”

» READ MORE: As Philly native Dawn Staley’s influence in basketball keeps growing, so does the power of her beliefs

His donation to the Phoenix kept a group of girls from Philly on the court, helped deepen their love of the game, and gave them a summer to remember.

Twiggs missed that trip to Orlando, but she’ll make up for it this week. She’ll be in Houston on Tuesday night when her son — the one who learned the game from his mom — becomes the first Public League player since Wallace — the star who once funded his mom’s dream — to play in the McDonald’s All American Game. That $5,000 donation is still paying off.

“Ain’t that something?” Horsey said. “It’s like, ‘Wow.’”