Natasha Cloud thrilled that ‘Young Tash’ gets Philly hoops homecoming with Unrivaled: ‘I carry this city everywhere I go’

Natasha Cloud will never forget Mr. Ross.

The youth coach used to hold 6 a.m. workouts inside a Baptist church on City Avenue, where Cloud first learned how to be disciplined in basketball and in life.

“I hope he sees this,” Cloud said Thursday afternoon, while facing a slew of television and cellphone cameras inside the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center. “ … He set a standard. He set an expectation. And he set a work ethic for my skill set, my career.”

Cloud will bring all of that back to Philly Friday night, when the Unrivaled offseason league plays two games at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The 33-year-old Broomall native called it a “dream come true” to help lead the return of professional women’s basketball to her city, ahead of the WNBA’s arrival in 2030. Yet Cloud is most elated for “Young Tash,” who has since blossomed into a WNBA champion, 11-year professional, dynamic personality and activist on and off the court.

“I carry this city everywhere I go,” Cloud said following practice for the Phantom, her Unrivaled team. “ … I just never thought I would be here, so I think the most gratifying thing is just trusting God’s journey for my life. Doing it my way, too. Because I don’t think a lot of people get to do their careers their way.”

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Before Mr. Ross, Cloud credits her Aunt Dawn as one of her first sports role models. A Delaware County basketball and softball star, Dawn helped Natasha to embrace being a tomboy — and a “powerful, badass woman.”

So Cloud honed that athleticism on the basketball hoop on the side of her home, which became a neighborhood gathering spot on school half-days. She played King — nah, Queen — of the Court against the boys. They lowered the rim so they could dunk. They idolized Allen Iverson and Dawn Staley.

When Linus McGinty, the legendary Cardinal O’Hara girls basketball coach, first watched Cloud play as an eighth-grader, he believed she had WNBA potential because “she could do everything.” And Cloud wanted to play for that program because, in her words, “In Linus We Trust.”

Cloud also appreciated O’Hara’s structure, from the nuns on campus to McGinty’s “strict” practices. She became an immediate starter on a talented team immersed in the competitive Philadelphia Catholic League.

McGinty’s one gripe about Cloud? She was almost too unselfish as the point guard.

“She never tried to score first,” the coach told The Inquirer by phone last week.

But Cloud made up for that in defensive prowess. The 5-foot-10 Cloud guarded the much more imposing Morgan Tuck and Elena Delle Donne, then elite recruits who became college and WNBA stars. Cloud preserved O’Hara’s 2008 PCL title victory by blocking a three-point attempt at the buzzer.

Then when Cloud was the only starter who returned her senior year, she finally carried more of O’Hara’s offensive load. She was an All-State selection after averaging 12.3 points, 7.9 rebounds, 5.2 assists, and four steals per game, before beginning her college career at Maryland.

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After her freshman season, she transferred to St. Joseph’s to be closer to home. Her sister had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. And she was looking for a similar family atmosphere within her next college program.

“Tash is a very compassionate person,” St. Joseph’s coach Cindy Griffin recently told The Inquirer by phone. “So if there’s anything going on at home, she feels that. She would have to learn how to manage that, and she did an unbelievable job doing that.”

While sitting out her first season due to previous NCAA transfer rules, Cloud worked on refining her jumper. Her energy filtered to teammates and staff, Griffin said, even when she was playing on the scout team. That was perhaps most evident on defense, where she consistently covered ground (and others’ mistakes) while understanding how to rotate sharply and when to take risks on the ball. She was the Atlantic 10 Defensive Player of the Year in 2014.

“That just fueled fire for all of her teammates,” Griffin said, “and it just elevated everybody around her. … They really appreciated that, and they wanted to play hard for her and with her.”

Then when the Hawks needed more scoring punch from Cloud as her career progressed, she delivered.

She totaled 15 points, six assists, and six rebounds in a comeback win over Fordham in the 2013 Atlantic 10 Tournament championship game, and “ looked like a pro out there, finishing in transition, taking and making tough shots,” the coach said. That carried over to the next season, when Cloud hit timely buckets to propel the ninth-seeded Hawks’ to upset eighth-seeded Georgia in the NCAA Tournament’s first round.

“Came down to a 1-5 ball screen,” Griffin said, “and [Cloud] being able to put us on her shoulders and win the game for us. … The answer is yes she can, and yes she will.”

Cloud’s impact has now stretched far beyond Philly.

She won the 2019 WNBA championship with the Washington Mystics, and led the league in assists in 2022. She has made a WNBA All-Defensive team three times. She has played overseas in Turkey and Australia. She opted out of the 2020 WNBA “bubble” season to focus on social justice issues, and remains outspoken on such topics.

Still, she has stayed connected to her roots.

She still has a house in town, meaning one might catch her during the offseason at the local Wawa or driving her truck. She regularly visits St. Joseph’s to work out and chat with the team, reminding them how special college bonds can be. Unprompted, she told The Inquirer last week that she hopes to have her jersey number retired by St. Joseph’s and O’Hara — preferably while her parents are still around to celebrate with her.

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And now, she finally gets to play professional basketball in Philly. When she learned Unrivaled would be making a tour stop here, she knew fans would “show up, and show out” for the showcase event. She stepped onstage wearing a Phillies cap for the announcement at LOVE Park in October. She hopes local kids getting to watch her play in person is a jolt of inspiration.

Among those in attendance Friday will be the Hawks, “shouting as loud as we can for Natasha Cloud and the Phantom,” Griffin said. An intrigued McGinty said he also might need to get down to South Philly. Mr. Ross is surely welcome, too. And it will be the first time Cloud plays in front of her family here since 2015.

They all helped develop “Young Tash.” And that is why she carries the city with her everywhere she goes — including back home.

“I’ve stayed true to myself,” Cloud said. “True to my character, my morals, my values through all of it. And that’s just a testament to, I feel like, being from Philly. We stand on our [stuff]. We’re going to talk our [stuff]. You can’t tell us otherwise. We know who we are.

“We’re confident in who we are, and a lot of people take it as arrogance. But it’s just just, like, ‘Man, God has blessed me so abundantly. Who am I to not walk out in this light every single day?’”