Imhotep’s Zahir Mathis and St. Joe’s Prep’s Samaj Jones are highly touted recruits. Their grandmother helped shape their path.

The basement was Rhonda Hall-Norris’ solemn enclave. It was where she could cut herself off from the world for a few moments. Its misshapen North Philly concrete walls and exposed overhead pipes would absorb the sound of her tears. The darkness supplied a brief, comforting embrace.

It was where Hall-Norris would retreat to recharge because there was no way anyone was going to see her break. There was too much to do. There was too much to shoulder — and there was no way anyone was going to take that burden off her.

Hall-Norris, 64, made sure a mirror was placed in front of her to see her firstborn daughter, Keyanna Hall, come into the world. She was there when Keyanna, aged 43, left. On March 12, 2020, lying in a makeshift hospital bed in her living room, Keyanna raised and dropped her right arm holding aloft her index finger, then took her last two breaths.

The hardest thing Hall-Norris ever experienced was followed by the hardest thing she ever had to do: tell Keyanna’s four children that their mother had died of Stage 4 cancer. Once he heard, Zahir Mathis, Keyanna’s youngest son, gripped his grandmother and did not want to let go.

Hall-Norris has not let go of him since. The 5-foot-4 grandmother has been the granite pillar everyone in her family, and many other families, has rested upon. Mathis, Imhotep Charter’s 6-foot-6, 230-pound junior edge rusher, is among the highest-rated defenders in his class, with offers from Ohio State, Florida State, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Texas. Mathis is the cousin of Samaj Jones, St. Joe Prep’s Cincinnati-bound quarterback and the son of Shawntel Hall, Hall-Norris’ second-oldest daughter.

Samaj and St. Joe’s Prep (10-1) will be taking on District 11 champion Nazareth (12-1) at 1 p.m. Saturday in the PIAA Class 6A quarterfinals at Northeast High School, while Mathis and undefeated Imhotep (12-0) will play District 2 champion and host Delaware Valley (10-3) at 1 p.m. Saturday in the 5A quarterfinals.

Hall-Norris hopes to make it to Cumberland Valley the second weekend of December for the PIAA state championship. She has a deeply vested interest; she took in Mathis and is raising him alongside his father, Thomas.

“I see my daughter Keyanna in Zahir’s face, in his smile, everything about him,” Hall-Norris said. “I knew I had to be strong because it’s what was always expected of me. I’ll never forget the day my daughter died. I knew the responsibility I had to take. I knew my baby was at peace. When I got to the top step to tell the kids, I remember taking a deep breath. ... I had to tell four children, my grandchildren, that their mother was gone. Zahir has always been low-key, not emotional. But he just exploded and he held me. I told him, ‘Grandmom is here, and I’ll always be here for you.’ Keyanna’s children were young when she passed away.

“But I had no time to grieve. I never got a chance to cry, but my children and my grandchildren gave me my strength. I also think growing up the only girl of eight children helped, too. That toughens you up. My roots are from the South. I had to take therapy to deal with [Keyanna’s death], but I would sneak downstairs in the basement when no one was looking and cry down there. I stood down there and cried in the dark, I wiped the tears away, and went back to work.”

Back to work meant running the daycare out of her home she has owned for 30 years. She took on the responsibility of Mathis and her grandchildren, and, on more than one occasion, took in the children of others in the North Philadelphia community. Martina Rivers, 32, was 4 weeks old when Hall-Norris took her in.

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“She’s my mom. I met my biological mother and siblings when I was 10, but she’s the one who raised me,” said Rivers, a Temple grad who is in law school. “My biological mother had substance abuse problems. I’m proud of my biological mother. She’s been clean the last 22 years, but if not for Rhonda, my mom, I would not be alive today. When my mom got me, from what I understand, I was extremely malnourished and in really bad shape. When I was taken to the doctors, they told her that if I wasn’t brought to them at that moment, I wouldn’t have made it.”

Hall-Norris has four children — Keyanna, Shawntel, Rivers, and Aaliyah Hall — and 11 grandchildren. The row home on Colwyn Street is kid central, a safe refuge with a revolving door of kids. Jones and Mathis were part of the interchange when they were younger. Hall-Norris would watch them along with the other children from her daycare to relieve Keyanna when she was working and Shawntel when she was in college.

Her children and grandchildren hardly ever saw her sleep. When they caught her dozing off in the living room recliner or the dining room table, she would come up with an excuse. Her catnaps were broken up by their laughter.

The work ethic did not fall far, either. Shawntel would breastfeed Jones while typing college term papers. She works for a home care agency and constantly rearranges her schedule to watch her son play.

Talk to any of her daughters or grandchildren, and one word surfaces in describing Hall-Norris’ relentless giving: resilience.

“There is a lot of my mom in me, and I’m very proud of that,” said Shawntel, a Temple graduate with a degree in business management. “My mom worked 70, 80 hours a week. I ran track and played volleyball at Olney, and I wished my mother would have been there, and it’s why I never miss Samaj’s games. I understand why she wasn’t because she was constantly working to provide for me. I had breakfast cooked for me in the morning, and I came home to a cooked meal at night. She took in everyone. A lot of these kids came from broken situations.

“Growing up, seeing the way my mom carries the badge of honor, how she takes in these kids still, I aspire to be just like her.”

Each time he got emotional, Mathis would get bad migraines. He learned to suppress them. Dealing with his mother’s illness and death has been a process. He’s 17. He was 14 when his mother died. Two years later, Hall-Norris kept Keyanna’s cell phone on so Mathis could hear his mother’s voicemail message. He would call five, six times a day just to hear her.

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“My dad and grandmom helped me get through it because my grandmom and my dad both lost their moms at a young age,” he said. “My grandmother helps me keep my mother’s memory alive. I like to say I still feel my mother’s presence inside me. I see my mom’s smile when I look in the mirror. I learned dignity from my mom. My composure comes from my mom, too. She always stayed balanced. Since my mother passed away, I’ve become more and more attached to my grandmom. She is the one who keeps me calm. You never really get over losing someone. I am still on that time clock. The pain is there. I don’t think it will ever go away. Football helps me deal with it.

“I had anger issues. I had to hear my mother’s voice, which stabilized me. I still have anger issues. I have better control of it. I would get so angry I would black out. Samaj talked me into continuing playing football. Without football, I would not have my head on straight to see the lane I’m about to approach. My grandmom helps me approach the world. She calms me.”

The college attention has changed his attitude. So has Imhotep Charter’s culture under football coach Devon Johnson.

Admittedly, Hall-Norris does not know much about football. She knows when Jones scores a touchdown and Mathis has a sack.

“Everything starts with our grandmom, and I remember I never saw her cry after my aunt died, but we wanted to take as much weight as we could off her mind,” Jones said. “I see where my mom gets her strength, and I see where I get it.”

The cousins realize that they might cause a problem for their grandmother on a future Saturday — or possibly Sunday: Mathis could be chasing Jones.

“I know it’s coming,” she said. “I can’t wait. I’m going to try and make it when they play in the state championship. If they face each other [in college or the NFL], I’ll figure it out. I’ll wear one of those shirts with one team on one side and the other team on the other side. I’ll support them both. They’re my grandchildren. I can’t let them down.”

She never has.