At age 5, Antoine Pettway pretended to be Alabama guard Terry Coner. The boy stayed up past his bedtime to watch Coner play on television, then woke up and recreated what he’d seen. ‘Dad,’ Pettway said one day, ‘you should have named me Terry.’

At 10, Pettway wanted to be Robert Horry, an Alabama forward known for his 3-point shot. Pettway hoisted 100 jumpers every day. For a break, he and his friends would play H-O-R-R-Y, not H-O-R-S-E.

‘He always wanted to be like some basketball star,’ said Joseph Pettway, Antoine’s father. ‘It kind of worried me. Like a million other kids, he was a dreamer.’

What made Antoine Pettway different, though, is that other people believed in his dreams.

Pettway’s dreams proved so contagious that they made him into a basketball walk-on at Alabama. Then they earned him a scholarship and a starting spot. When the Crimson Tide play Syracuse at 9:40 tonight in Phoenix, most of Alabama will believe in Pettway’s biggest dream: to take the school he loves to the Final Four.

‘If anyone can do it,’ Alabama coach Mark Gottfried said, ‘it’s that little guy.’

Five years ago, though, nobody thought Pettway – a 5-foot-9 guard from Alberta, Ala. – had the skill to even play for Alabama, much less lead it deep into the NCAA Tournament. While Alabama State and Alabama A&M both offered Pettway scholarships, the big school in the state, the one Pettway had dreamed of playing for, never came to watch him play.

‘Forget Alabama,’ Joseph Pettway told his son. ‘They’re not coming with a scholarship.’

‘Then I’ll walk-on,’ Antoine Pettway responded, ‘because I don’t want to play anywhere else.’

Said Joseph Pettway: ‘I realized that playing at Alabama was the only thing that would make him happy. Sometimes, you forget about being young and having dreams. I wanted my son to follow his heart.’

At Alabama, Antoine Pettway quickly made believers out of his new teammates. He paid tuition money out of pocket, earned As and Bs in class and arrived 30 minutes early to shoot before every practice.

He hustled so tirelessly during scrimmages that he wore a hole through his favorite sneaker – a red artifact he’d brought with him from home.

‘He came in and worked real hard,’ Alabama forward Reggie Rambo said. ‘He might be little, but he has a lot of heart.’

As a reward for Pettway’s hard work, Gottfried offered Pettway a scholarship at the beginning of his sophomore year. As compensation for the scholarship, Pettway started playing like a bona fide star.

He ripped down 10 rebounds during a key conference win against Georgia. Then, in the Southeastern Conference title game, he hit a last-second lay-up to lift his team over Florida.

‘He’s always been great in the clutch,’ Gottfried said. ‘Antoine just has a really unique ability to hit big shots.’

Pettway has filled this season, his first as a starter, with such heroics. He knocked down a 3-pointer with two seconds left to beat Georgia in January. He hit a 3-pointer with no time left to send a game against Arkansas into overtime. He nailed two free throws to force overtime in the SEC tournament against Florida.

Pettway saved his biggest shots, though, for last weekend. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, he hit a runner with five seconds left to give Alabama a one-point win over Southern Illinois. Two days later, he hit a long 3-pointer to put his team up by two over Stanford with four minutes left.

‘He’s always, always the guy that kills you,’ said Arkansas assistant coach Ronny Thompson, who’s faced Pettway twice this season. ‘He never gets the respect that he deserves on that team. He’s just tough, just solid. He’s the glue for them, without a doubt.’

Even though Pettway averages just nine points and four assists, he could be the Tide’s biggest weapon against Syracuse. Coaches laud him for his ability to penetrate against a zone defense. If Syracuse packs its zone inside and leaves Pettway open, he’ll hit the outside shot.

After all, this is the game of his life. And, in the clutch, he tends to come through.

‘(Antoine’s) going to do what he always does,’ Joseph Pettway said. ‘He’ll go out against Syracuse and work as hard as he can to make his dreams come true.’

Published on March 24, 2004 at 12:00 pm