Iasia Hemingway’s homesickness finally reached a tipping point.

Her 15-year-old cousin, Bassemah, had been sick with cancer since Iasia first went to Georgia Tech. Bassemah wanted to follow in Iasia’s footsteps and play college basketball. The pair saw each other every day when Iasia was home. They were as close as siblings.

‘If you fight this cancer,’ Iasia told Bassemah, ‘you’re going to make it.’

But Bassemah was struggling to fight off the cancer. Iasia’s mother, Henrietta, tried to keep the news from her daughter. She knew it would tear her apart.

But Iasia got updates from another cousin. And at the start of summer in 2008, that cancer cut Bassemah’s life short. It was all Iasia could bear to handle.

That was the final push Iasia needed. She decided then and there that she needed to be closer to home, closer to her family in Newark, N.J. Bassemah’s death brought her to where she is now, a starting forward and the third-leading scorer and rebounder for the Syracuse women’s basketball team.

The transfer, though, has been just a small part of Iasia’s journey. And through it all, there has been basketball. Hemingway used the sport to help her navigate the streets of Newark and the hallways of Malcolm X Shabazz High School. She used it to overcome a learning disability, her family’s financial struggles and multiple deaths of loved ones.

And as for the next step, she wants to use this basketball-driven journey to inspire others.

‘I want to be a motivational speaker,’ she says. ‘Because if I can succeed, then, you know, why can’t you?’

Playing with the boys

Once George Briscoe realized his stepdaughter was passionate about basketball, he injected himself into that aspect of her life with unusual methods. Briscoe, who started four years at Division III Stockton College, put Hemingway on the boys’ teams, which he coached from fifth to eighth grade.

‘If you want to get better, this is where you have to go,’ he told her.

Hemingway hated it. But she knew Briscoe was right. He soon started getting her up at 6 a.m. for runs through the park every day. It wasn’t long before Hemingway began getting up on her own, never complaining, always wanting to work.

And that translated to early success on the court.

‘She became very dominant,’ Briscoe said. ‘She started off blocking shots and rebounding. Because her physical presence was always there, she became physical with (the boys), just earning their respect, so her confidence started to take off.’

Her Orange teammates see that physicality today. When she crashes the boards, someone typically ends up on the floor, whether it’s herself, an opponent or a teammate.

SU head coach Quentin Hillsman calls her relentless on the glass. Senior guard Erica Morrow said she occasionally won’t even crash the boards, assuming her junior teammate will pull in the rebound.

But for Hemingway, that unyielding persistence has been there from the beginning. Persistence from each rebound to each step in her journey.

‘That’s how I was raised,’ she said. ‘Regardless of who’s in my way, I’m going to go after it.’

A school without books

Keeping her daughter off the streets of Newark was one of Henrietta’s concerns. Keeping her safe at school was another.

‘You know, Iasia, when school lets out, you stay in the gym,’ she used to tell Iasia during her freshman year at Malcolm X Shabazz. ‘You don’t go outside. … You really don’t know anybody. Don’t go out there.’

Gangs cost Iasia some of her closest friends. She said in every one of her four years at Shabazz, at least one of her friends was shot. There were fights after school every day. Students showed up to class wearing brass knuckles. Iasia said Shabazz was bad academically. Its graduation rate sits at 38.6 percent.

‘Coming from my school, we didn’t have books,’ Hemingway said. ‘We were lucky to find a book in the library that had all the pages. It was a struggle.’

Even more of a struggle for Iasia. She always felt she was fighting something when it came to schoolwork. There was always something there, blocking her success. But she didn’t find out until college that she suffered from dyslexia.

Still, none of it slowed down her basketball game. Shabazz was among the best in New Jersey during the four years Hemingway spent there. She was named New Jersey Player of the Year as a junior and senior. Scout.com ranked her a Top 25 recruit.

Her parents wanted her to make it out of Newark. And basketball was the perfect way to do it.

‘I just tried to keep Iasia busy and off the streets,’ Henrietta said. ‘That was my main thing. And she had a love for basketball, so that was just great.’

Two Years, Too Far

Despite being from a tight-knit family, Iasia wanted to go away for college. With multiple ACC schools recruiting her, she made it out of Newark. And Georgia Tech, 850-plus miles south, was her school of choice.

For those first two years, the separation was tolerable. Her parents’ constant trips to home games nullified her feelings of homesickness.

But it soon came crashing down.

Henrietta was laid off from her job at Lucent Technologies Inc. in 2006, just a year before Iasia left for Georgia Tech. By 2008, it became clear she would not be able to afford the visits to Atlanta. And then Bassemah’s death hit Iasia hard.

‘I really wasn’t focusing on basketball (after that),’ she said. ‘It was more thinking about back home. … So I was just thinking about how my family was doing and not really focusing on what was priority.’

The separation was too much. And as Iasia’s pleas over several months became consistent, Henrietta knew her daughter needed to come back home.

‘Now you’ve made the decision, and you’re going to have to live with that decision,’ she said of Iasia’s transfer. ‘And that’s my biggest thing because kids, a lot of parents like to make decisions for kids — I’m not that type of parent. … I always give her the opportunity to make the decisions for herself.’

Home at the Dome

If it were up to Henrietta, her daughter never would have left New Jersey. She would have gone to college at Rutgers, just 40 minutes from Newark.

That was too close in Iasia’s mind. She wanted to be close to home, but not right in her backyard.

Syracuse was a possible fit. And Briscoe said it was a perfect match.

And after sitting out a year due to NCAA transfer regulations, Hemingway is now a full-time starter like she was at Georgia Tech.

‘I love it here,’ Hemingway said. ‘I don’t regret any of the decisions I’ve made.’

Perhaps more importantly, she is only a four-hour drive away from Newark. Her mom has seen four Orange home games this year. The rest of the family will be at SU’s road contests against Rutgers and St. John’s in February.

When she goes home, she often goes back to Shabazz, where her mom occasionally substitutes as a teacher. The school retired Iasia’s jersey after her graduation, and students ask Henrietta about her whenever she subs.

When Iasia does visit, she tells the students about how she got to Syracuse, about her basketball-driven journey. And her message is simple: If she could do it, in spite of everything, so could they.

‘This isn’t easy,’ Iasia tells them. ‘I came from the same school you’re from, and if I can do it, y’all can do it, too. You just have to stay focused. There’s going to be a lot of distractions, but mentally, you’ve just got to be focused. There’s going to be trials and tribulations. But you’ve just got to fight through them.’

zjbrown@syr.edu

Published on January 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm