It was always a battle. The over-ambitious 12-year-old trying to get something — a smile, a nod even — out of his 3-year-old brother.

‘Jeremy, point to blue,’ Craig would say.

Jeremy’s head would swivel, his eyes darting around the kitchen in search of a distraction. His arms would flail, as he tried to speak and fight the autism that had turned his mind into a prison.

‘No, Jeremy,’ Craig begged. ‘Over here! Blue!’

The daily exercises would go on like this for hours. But Craig — ever the perfectionist — never gave up.

***

Syracuse men’s basketball player Craig Forth can never do enough for himself.

Though the 7-foot Forth started every game at center and averaged 4.9 points last season as a freshman, he picked apart his play after every game.

After all, for so long, he’s let other people lean on his strength. He’d give and give. He’d give his time — to working on his game, to his brother, to a friendship with a disabled girl in high school, but never to himself.

And when he couldn’t give anymore, he’d tear himself apart.

But, as always, he’s expecting more this year. He’s honed his footwork. He’s bulked up.

‘I’ve always been in a rush to please everybody,’ he says. ‘Now, this year, I’m in a rush to please myself, play the way I want to play. I want to be my own person, my own player.’

***

For 15 minutes, Forth stands in the Carrier Dome’s muggy locker room, hanging his head. He’s done this far too often in SU’s disappointing 2001-02 season.

Answering every postgame question, he blames himself. No toughness on the boards, too many stupid fouls, he says.

He’s 18 years old and SU’s lone regular freshman starter. But it’s never enough, because when he goes home he’ll hear the praise — We’re so proud of you, Craig. You’re doing such a great job. And since he’s always been so over-ambitious — with volunteer work, with basketball, with Jeremy — he’s rushed to please everyone else first.

‘(Hearing praise) always makes me want to do so much more,’ Forth says. ‘When I think that I’m not doing a great job is when it just kills me.’

So Forth worked himself to the bone last year. He was so busy that he barely slept and ate. By season’s start, he’d lost 15 pounds, starting his first SU game at 255 pounds, his lowest playing weight since his freshman year at Columbia High in the Albany suburb of East Greenbush.

In SU’s 23-13 season, in which the Orangemen lost eight of their last 12 regular-season games, Forth averaged 4.5 rebounds and blocked a team-leading 65 shots.

Still, Forth averaged three fouls and fouled out four times.

‘Starting every game was a great experience for me last year,’ he says. ‘But was I at the right weight to do it? Was I at the right mental capacity to do it? I don’t think so.’

The suddenly frail Forth played standing straight up — rather than staying low as SU assistant coach Bernie Fine preached — and spent plenty of time picking himself up off the floor.

He admits now that, at first, he couldn’t keep up with college competition.

‘Last year was embarrassing,’ he says. ‘I watch games where I fell down like 15 or 20 times each game.’

***

After three hours of drills, Carmelo Anthony was getting bored.

Anthony, SU’s prized freshman, started playfully shoving sophomore Josh Pace during wind sprints in a preseason practice. Forth stepped back and rolled his eyes.

‘Come on guys,’ Forth said. ‘This is the last sprint, let’s go.’

Forth’s been an on-court director since last year, when he’d loudly correct fellow center Jeremy McNeil whenever he got out of position. This year, teammates and coaches are expecting Forth to continue that role and assert himself more physically down low.

‘Craig is much bigger this year, he’s much stronger and he’s much improved,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim says. ‘We’re going to expect some things from him.’

Indeed, Forth says he packed on 25 pounds during the summer.

‘I think I have a six-pack,’ he says. ‘But I’m not sure.’

‘The No. 1 thing for Craig,’ says Jim Obermeyer, Forth’s high school coach, ‘was just to get bigger and stronger, and I think he’s done that. It doesn’t take him long to figure things out. I remember when he was in eighth grade, the knock on him was that he didn’t get from one end of the court to the other very well. By 10th grade, he was pretty good at changing ends.’

Forth spent part of his summer at the Pete Newell Big Man Camp in Hawaii, working with NBA coaches and players. He brushed up on his shoddy footwork, which last year made him look a step too slow.

‘He knows he was challenged last year,’ SU guard Kueth Duany says. ‘But he’s done a lot of growing up since then.’

***

At Columbia High, Jaime Adams is always the quietest cheerleader.

She sits in her wheelchair on the sidelines, her body ravaged by Rett Syndrome. She can’t walk, she can’t speak. Her dad, Burke, waves her pom-poms for her because she can’t move her hands.

When she was 4, Jaime was diagnosed with Rett, a neurological disorder that hampers communication and motor skills. By age 8, she weighed just 20 pounds. For seven years, Burke couldn’t even look at his blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby girl without crying.

Jaime just turned 18, and this year will be her eighth as a Columbia cheerleader. Her favorite player is the school’s all-time leading scorer — Craig Forth.

‘She can’t talk, but you can tell by her eyes,’ Burke says. ‘She loves that Craig. He’s always been her helper.’

Before Columbia’s Senior Night game in 2001, the Blue Devil seniors gave bouquets of flowers to senior cheerleaders. Forth gave his to Jaime.

‘There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,’ Obermeyer says.

When Forth broke the school scoring record, he ran over to Jaime, kissed her on the cheek and gave her the ball. It still sits in her room.

‘When Craig comes over to our house to visit,’ Burke says, ‘Jaime will be laying on the floor, because she can’t sit up, and I’ll say, ‘Your buddy Craig is coming.’ She’ll roll her eyes back, because he used to sneak up from behind her. She’ll always remember when he does that. She’ll just get a big smile on her face.’

In high school, Forth worked with Burke and Jaime in basketball, softball and soccer leagues for disabled kids.

Forth, of course, always pushed Jaime around the bases.

‘She loves those bumpy rides around the bases,’ Burke says. ‘She laughs so hard when she goes around the bases. Craig’s leaning over, saying, ‘Jamie, how was that?’ And she looks back at him like, ‘Keep going.’ ‘

Forth’s been helping disabled kids as a peer mentor since third grade. But Jeremy and Jaime’s influence on his life further fueled his passion to become a special education teacher.

Forth remembers how his mother, Maggie, used to tell Jeremy’s kindergarten teachers what worked best to help Jeremy open up. The teachers, wouldn’t listen.

‘If he couldn’t get the things that my mom wanted for him,’ says Forth, an inclusive education major who’s now student-teaching at Salem Hyde Elementary School, ‘I’m going to be the teacher that gives other kids like Jeremy what his parents want.’

***

Forth lives for the phone calls from his younger brother.

They come as a relief when he’s sitting in his South Campus apartment, stressed from a full day of classes, exhausted from a torturous practice.

He’ll pick up the receiver and hear that soft voice, still struggling to squeeze out a word.

‘Jeremy,’ Craig asks, ‘what’d you do in school today?’

‘Me … and the teacher … and Miss Wilcox … and everybody … went over … to the apple farm … and picked apples.’

It’s progress. And it’s a reminder to Forth that the time he spent working with his autistic brother made a difference.

‘Talking like that over the phone is huge,’ Forth says. ‘Before it would be like, ‘Jeremy, you have to look at me,’ or else he wouldn’t talk to you. I’m so proud of him.’

***

On the outside of Forth’s right ankle, above the super-sized Birkenstock sandals he’s wearing, is a Chinese symbol tattoo.

‘It means strength,’ Forth says.

In a sense, that’s never been a problem for him.

Published on November 13, 2002 at 12:00 pm