PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Maureece Rice wasn’t alive when Wilt Chamberlain was setting NBA records, let alone when the 1955 Overbrook High graduate was establishing Philadelphia high school scoring marks.
Rice’s father, Curtis Toomer, was born the year before Chamberlain graduated from Overbrook, but doesn’t remember much of the Philadelphia great’s basketball career.
Toomer, Maureece Rice, and everybody connected with the Strawberry Mansion basketball program have heard a lot about Chamberlain leading into the 2002-2003 season.
Rice, the returning Associated Press Big School Player of the Year, enters a campaign that begins Dec. 3 with 1,922 career points. Chamberlain finished his Overbrook career with 2,206 points, a record for Philadelphia high school players that still stands.
The record won’t last through this season if Rice, who averaged 32.1 points per game last year, stays healthy.
“I’ve been thinking about it every day,” the guard said. “I’ve been thinking about how much attention I’ll have. He had the record for so long. Now, I’m about to break it.”
The player on the verge of becoming the all-time Philadelphia high school scoring leader bears little resemblance to the man he is about to pass. Chamberlain was a 7-footer. Rice stands 6 feet tall. Chamberlain dominated inside. Rice scores inside, outside, from anywhere on the court.
“Maureece’s strength is his knowledge of the game,” said Sonny Hill, head of the Sonny Hill amateur basketball league and a long-time Chamberlain friend and fan. “He doesn’t specialize. He’s not a prolific shooter. He’s not a tall guy. But his knowledge of the game at the high school level is two grades ahead.”
Rice, 18, started honing his game on neighborhood playgrounds and at the local YMCA. Toomer, 48, was a tough opponent who wasn’t about to give an inch to his son.
“He’d be in tears sometimes,” Toomer said. “I always wanted to play him hard. I wanted to instill in him that this was how it was going to be playing with the big guys, the older guys. I guess he got used to it.”
Rice started playing in AAU tournaments. He played in the Sonny Hill League last summer. His Strawberry Mansion coach, Gerald Hendricks, knew about Rice before he enrolled at the high school.
“He’s been touted as a schoolyard legend since he was in eighth grade,” Hendricks said. “But he’s held it in check well. You know teenagers. They can go crazy sometimes.”
Strawberry Mansion won its first-ever Public League championship when Rice was a freshman. Rice came off the bench at the beginning of the year. He was a starter by the end of the season.
The Knights returned to the league finals again last season. A complementary player as a freshman, Rice averaged 32.1 points and nearly seven rebounds and three assists as a junior to lead Strawberry Mansion to another title.
