Positive Direction

DeAndre Cole had seen the red-headed girl playing basketball on many occasions. Other players, and even some adults, had told him, “You can’t count on ‘Red.’ ”

But he talked to Niauni Brown anyway. She had failed three-fourths of her classes during her freshman year -- thank heaven for P.E. -- so even though she loved basketball, she was ineligible to play varsity.

Life had seemed hopeless for Brown, whose first name is pronounced nee-AH-nee. Her father died in an accident when she was 11. Her mother, who brought nine children into the world, was out of her life. She fought with her siblings, who like herself were under the care of her retired grandmother in South Los Angeles.

“I don’t care,” she told Cole, “if I live or die.”

Brown’s lack of belonging, her lack of self-esteem, her indifference had landed her at rock bottom, somewhere under the cornerstone at Manual Arts High.

“How could you just give up on life when you were blessed with something so precious?” asked Cole, who at the time was the school’s girls’ basketball varsity coach and is currently a campus security guard and assistant coach.

But it wasn’t Cole’s appeal to life that led Brown out of her hole. He appealed to her pride.

“I told her how people look at her,” Cole recalled, “and she goes, ‘I’m going to prove them wrong.’ ”

Two years later, she has. “Red” started showing up for roll call and has turned into a role model.

Her grade-point average the last three semesters has been a solid B -- without an F in sight. She has raised her GPA to a C.

A junior guard, she stands 5 feet 10 and is still growing at 17. Wrapping up her second season on the varsity, she averaged 20.7 points, twice her average of last season, and 8.6 rebounds. Her 55 three-pointers lead the City Section. She realized her goal of being selected Coliseum League MVP, sharing with Dorsey’s Erica Inge, despite playing for the third-place team.

But Brown can’t be defined by wins and losses. Not now. More important than any game, perhaps, is that she was selected team captain by her coaches.

Her team? Manual Arts is on the verge of a championship. The Toilers are 12-7 after defeating North Hills Monroe, 47-38, Friday in a semifinal of the Invitational Division, a playoff for the next-best 16 teams that were not selected to compete in the Championship Division. Brown had 13 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and two steals. They’ll play next Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Forum for the Invitational title.

“She’s been pretty much the most dedicated, consistent person on the team,” said Trent Cornelius, the team’s first-year head coach who marvels at Brown’s work ethic. She works out an hour before school, an hour after practice, and usually during lunch or nutrition breaks every day.

“She listens, doesn’t talk back, she’s the model captain,” Cornelius said. “You don’t make unreliable people your captain.”

That, as much as anything, is testament to her personal victory. Not so long ago, she didn’t care if she saw the next day.

“People told me I’d go straight to hell if I killed myself,” she said, “but I really didn’t care. I just wanted to leave. I didn’t want to be here no more....

“[Cole] told me that life’s hard sometimes, that I have to live through it because it’s not always going to be like that.”

The problems that she felt were so devastating in the past? “Stupid,” she now says. But her feelings were typical of a teenager in turmoil.

“Kids will kill themselves because of loneliness, they have a poor self-image, they feel like no one likes them or will accept them,” said Don Austen, founder of Woodland Hills-based Thursday’s Child, an international program for at-risk children. “Most people want acceptance, they want things to change, they feel like they’re living a nightmare and they want to wake up. They want a reason to live.”

Currently, she’s focused on college as the next step in her plan to one day play in the WNBA. And if that doesn’t work out, the kid who ditched math class in the sixth grade would like to be a math teacher.

“To hear she didn’t care about life shocks me because that is not the young woman I know,” said Linda Baughn, who has been Brown’s history teacher since July 1.

“She acts like she’s got a plan and she’s working every day to achieve that plan. She’s sweet, she’s considerate, she’s respectful and she’s self-confident, but she’s not arrogant.”

Brown’s grandmother, Saleata Fontaine, a former teacher from the L.A. Unified School District, raised 14 grandchildren -- nine by one daughter, five by another -- in an old three-bedroom house.

Brown was the only loner among the group of children.

“She’s not a talker, she’s not going to open up and say what her deep feelings are,” Fontaine said. “She doesn’t do a lot of mingling, and she’s selective. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.”

Her father, Derrick Brown, died in a car accident when she was 11. Her mother “was involved in her own life,” Brown said, “and it didn’t include us.”

“Being raised by grandma instead of her parents has had a profound effect on her,” Fontaine said, “and how she releases her pain is through playing [basketball]. After getting so involved in the sport, she was able to achieve something and get some attention.”

In becoming academically eligible to play basketball, Brown began living the motto that Cole shared with her: “If you know the answer, it’s not a problem.”

When it became apparent her sophomore year that Brown was serious about basketball because she showed up to class, teammate Tywanna Washington began tutoring her in English. The influence of Carlesha Cole, DeAndre’s sister, helped Brown too. Good grades and basketball soon went hand-in-hand.

And now Brown is happy to be a role model to her younger siblings and cousins, among others.

“It feels good to have a younger person look up to you and be like you,” she said. “The thing I’m most proud of is that I’m still living. I’m glad I’m still here.”