By MIKE POTTER : The Herald-Sun
mpotter@heraldsun.com
Jan 28, 2007 : 11:50 pm ET 

DURHAM -- Bryan Ayala isn't supposed to be playing basketball for N.C. Central. 

At least that's what the doctors said. And in most cases, they would have been right. 

When Ayala was born 20 years ago in Philadelphia, they doubted he would ever really walk normally, much less run effortlessly up and down the basketball court. 

He was born with a birth defect, a right clubfoot turned nearly 180 degrees from the proper direction. Three days later, he went home from the hospital with a cast on his leg. 

"They noticed it right away," said his mother, Susan Ayala, who raised her son without his father in the picture. "Every week I had to remove the cast and take him to the doctor." 

The child's first surgery came when he was 9 months old. 

"But he was walking in the cast by the time he was a year old. He said, 'To heck with the cast,' " Susan Ayala said. 

That has seemed to be her son's attitude since he was old enough to have one. But still he knew he was "different" from most of his classmates. 

Bryan Ayala wasn't supposed to be playing rough games outside with the other kids. But his mother said she would go pick him up at the park and see him trying to run, his brace left next to a fence somewhere. 

When the boy was young and his maternal grandfather, Eddie Cox, would see him staring out a window of their Norfolk, Va., home at the other kids playing, Cox would sit him down at a card table and play a game. 

"We used to play a game called 'tunk,' ' Ayala said of his days as a young card shark. "And 'I declare war' all day long." 

Both mother and son said Cox, who died six years ago, was a major influence in his life. The Eagles guard has five tattoos, one with his mother's first name and another in memory of "Pop-Pop." 

He had one more operation when he was 8 1/2 that put him in a wheelchair for about a year. That seemed to hurt his psyche more than it hurt his leg, his mother said. 

When Ayala was almost 10, a doctor told him it might be all right to participate in contact sports. His mother reluctantly agreed, and his life hasn't been the same since. 

In his first recreation-league football game, he played quarterback and scored a touchdown from near the goal line by flipping over the top of the defenders and landing on his backside. 

Susan Ayala said her son lay on the ground for what seemed like an eternity. She thought something awful might have happened to his leg. But it turned out he had only had the wind knocked out of him. 

"My uncles had to hold my mom back from going onto the field every time I went down," Ayala said with a laugh. 

But a star had been born on the athletic fields and courts. 

By the time he was at Granby High, he played wide receiver and free safety on the football team, and did it well enough to make All-Eastern District twice and honorable mention All-State once on the defensive side. 

He said he ran a 4.49 in the 40 and drew recruiting interest from Wofford and Kent. 

But Ayala was better at basketball, earning a promotion to the varsity late in his freshman season. He led the Comets to the district championship and he state Class AAA quarterfinals his senior year, averaging 19.6 points, eight rebounds and eight assists along the way. 

"He's smart and a hard worker," said his Granby basketball coach Lonnie Blow, now an assistant coach at Norfolk State. "Bryan is the kind of kid who makes you want to be in coaching." 

Ayala said several big schools, from conferences like the ACC, the Big East and the SEC, scouted him but backed away. He said he thought the leg, which remains noticeably smaller than his other, might have scared them off. 

But smaller schools like Delaware State, Barton and Shaw did offer him scholarships. And then there was NCCU. 

Ayala said he and coach Henry Dickerson connected instantly the first time they met. 

"I think I appreciate what he's gone through more since we have a son who is challenged," said Dickerson, whose son, Brandon, about Ayala's age, is affected by autism. "I liked his makeup and his demeanor the first time we met. And I knew when I was recruiting him I was recruiting a Division I guard." (NCCU will move up to NCAA Division I next season.) 

Dickerson called Ayala a good student and a good representative of the NCCU program. 

"I admire what he's able to do," Dickerson said. "He can't just roll out of bed and go in the morning -- he has to get up a lot earlier to get his legs ready to go. He's heard some nasty things from the stands on the road -- awful things. But he just keeps playing." 

NCCU assistant athletic trainer Mike Essa said Ayala has the most unusual congenital condition he faces. 

"The only thing he doesn't do the same as the rest of the team is a conditioning drill where they hop on one leg," Essa said. "He doesn't hop on the right one." 

But Ayala said the leg is getting stronger. At 6'2" and 180 pounds, the sophomore can dunk with ease, and said he's getting a better ability to jump off the right leg for a left-handed layup. 

Last season was a tale of two halves for him. He came off the bench for the first 14 games before starting the last 14. 

He averaged 5.1 points per game, led the team in steals (43) and was second in assists (59) and shot 71.4 percent from the free-throw line. 

The best game of Ayala's career was this season's opener against Columbus State. He scored 33 points in a 95-82 win in the opening round of the BC Powder Classic at McLendon-McDougald Gym. 

The next night he scored 16 in a 67-65 victory over Barton, including the 3-pointer that hung on the rim and dropped through as time expired to beat the defending Division II East Regional champions. Ayala was an easy choice as the classic's MVP. 

A natural shooting guard who is spending most of his time at the point, he's averaging 10.6 points, a team-leading 4.3 assists, a team-leading 1.9 steals, 3.9 rebounds and is a 72 percent free-throw shooter. 

"When he signed with NCCU, I didn't believe it!" Susan Ayala said of her son's accomplishments. "My brothers were all telling me he had a chance to play college ball, but I didn't think they were right. It really was a great day when he signed. And I've come to see him play every time I could." 

She also is proud of her son's success in the classroom. 

"He had a 3.5 GPA last semester," she said. 

But his mama still worries every time he takes a hard fall on the court. 

"His teammates respect him, and they're all concerned for him, too," Dickerson said. "Every time he goes down, they're right there to ask him if he's all right."