City names street for Yolanda Laney, a trailblazer for Philly women’s hoops: ‘It wasn’t just about me’
She mentored stars like Dawn Staley and her own daughter, Betnijah, who's now a WNBA stalwart: “I needed to stay with these kids and help them get to where I had gotten to.”
Yolanda Laney was about 14 years old when a counselor at the Wissahickon Boys and Girls Club in Germantown led her outside the gym and pointed skyward as an airplane passed overhead.
“What do you see?” Laney recalled hearing from Barry Thomas, then a teacher at Frankford High School, who ran that Germantown gym after school.
Laney, who later became a hoops star at University City High and then Cheyney University (then Cheyney State), acknowledged seeing the plane, which she said was carrying people headed somewhere else.
» READ MORE: 40 years later, Cheyney pride in its historic NCAA Tournament run is strong as ever | from 2022
“He said, ‘That can be you,’” Laney, whose daughter, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, now plays for the New York Liberty, recalled in a phone interview.
“‘You can either be standing down here watching people fly over, or you can be on that plane, flying many places while playing basketball, because you have a gift.’”
During a ceremony packed with family, friends, public officials, and former players in West Philadelphia last week, she saw “Yolanda Laney — Basketball Way” celebrated on a street sign above 40th and Baring Streets.
Though it wasn’t just her name that she saw.
“It was a beautiful day,” Laney said. “That day was beautiful because it wasn’t just about me. It was about everybody who steered my path. … It was an honoring of me, but it was also an honoring of everybody who touched me along the way.”
Laney, now 61, often is remembered for leading Cheyney to the first NCAA women’s championship game in 1982.
That remains the only time an HBCU reached the title game. As a senior, Laney led Cheyney to another Final Four before it lost to Tennessee.
She began, however, as a little girl who was transfixed by basketball. She watched Jackie Cobb, who played at Cheyney at the time, compete against boys outside her building on Queen Lane in Germantown.
“I ran upstairs and asked my mom, ‘Can I get a basketball?’” Laney recalled. “She was so elated. She came right downstairs, took me on the avenue, and I got a red and white basketball. I was out there every day when I had free time.”
Unbeknownst to Laney at the time, her mother, Betty, played at South Carolina State at a time when only certain players could play both offense and defense.
Betty Laney, who had cancer and died at 45 years old, became her daughter’s first basketball coach.
Similarly, Yolanda was her daughter’s first coach.
Betnijah, though, was more interested in cheerleading until about 10 years old when she finally told her mother that she “loved” basketball.
“I feel really good watching the growth of the game and where it is now because it wasn’t there for us when we were coming out of college,” Laney said. “We had to play for 10 months overseas instead of being home. And to witness my daughter playing for the New York Liberty, it’s an opportunity that I didn’t get but I am actually getting to see her [have].”
» READ MORE: Yolanda and Betnijah Laney pay a two-generation tribute to C. Vivian Stringer’s retirement | from 2022
Laney, who won three consecutive Public League titles as an All-American at U-City, mentored thousands over a nearly 40-year coaching career.
At U-City, Laney was coached by Lurline Jones, who won a Pub-record 12 championships and will have a ceremonial street naming of her own later this month.
Laney was inspired by Jones and others to give back to her community.
“My motivation was that somebody took the time to care enough about me to help steer my path and give me the opportunity to do the things I loved to do,” Laney said. “I wanted to do the same for someone else. It was never motivation for myself. It was that someone took time out to care about me and I wanted to do the same for many others.”
Watching Perry Mason episodes as a girl, she said, inspired Laney to earn a law degree at Temple after playing briefly in Europe.
She then dedicated herself to public service, eschewing opportunities to further her a coaching career that included a stint coaching Cheyney.
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Laney taught skills on Saturday mornings to boys and girls at the Mallory Recreation Center (now known as the Daniel E. Rumph rec center), ran Sonny Hill and John Chaney basketball programs, helped start the Developmental Basketball League, in which she coached a young Dawn Staley, and led AAU programs.
“The Lord showed me [college coaching] wasn’t where he needed me,” said Laney, who also was an assistant city solicitor in Atlantic City for 27 years. “I needed to stay with these kids and help them get to where I had gotten to.”
Many still remember her impact.
Laney recently was headed to a New York Liberty home game, grandchildren in tow, when a man in his 40s recognized her and called out.
She had coached him growing up.
“I knew exactly who he was,” she said. “And a lot of the kids I coached showed up for the street naming, and it made me feel really warm.
“I have lived life to the fullest,” she added. “I have no regrets. The Lord guided me and gathered me to do all that I have done in my lifetime.”