RIGHT VALUES

In a patch of farmland on the edges of this tiny hill town, there’s a pristine subdivision with two-story brick houses, deep lawns and backyard pools.

The Brewers live across the street, in a matchbox house with a weed-choked yard and a backyard beer tub.

In the subdivision, smooth driveways lead to fancy garages on which are mounted basketball hoops.

The Brewers have a gravel driveway, no garage for their 100,000-mile cars, and a couple of warped lawn chairs around that beer tub.

Every morning, when Glenda Brewer leaves for her job as a special education teacher and Pee Wee Brewer wheels himself outside to visit friends, they look across the street into that fancy subdivision.

Every night, they phone the son who could have put them there.

And they tell him they love him because he didn’t.

Meet the parents of Corey Brewer, the University of Florida forward who turned down NBA millions to make college basketball history.

Meet the parents who told Brewer his happiness was more important than their wealth.

The richest folks in Sumner County.

Says Glenda, “Seems to us, lots of people who have money are miserable.”

Says Pee Wee, “I told that boy, ‘Don’t you worry about us none, you follow your heart.’ ”

A powerful thing, that heart.

Brewer’s surprising decision to return to school after he had helped Florida to a national championship last season inspired wealthier teammates Joakim Noah and Al Horford to do the same. Today, with last season’s core intact, Florida is two wins from becoming college basketball’s first repeat champion in 15 years.

When the Gators play UCLA in the second national semifinal game Saturday in Atlanta, Glenda will be in the stands, having driven four hours south in her rattling PT Cruiser.

“Don’t matter how much money he makes, the only thing I would ever need is a newer Cruiser,” she says.

Pee Wee, a diabetic whose left leg was amputated in November, will be watching in the back room of their nicely furnished but cramped home, on a dusty 15-year-old television.

“That TV got a do-not-resuscitate order on it,” he says with a nearly toothless grin. “When it goes, it’s gone.”

Both parents will be hearing the same thing from fans and friends. Both will smile, but neither will understand.

“All season, strangers have walked up to us and said, ‘Thank you,’ and we’re like, ‘Thank you for what?’ ” Glenda says. “Thank you for trying to teach our son the right values? Isn’t that what a parent is supposed to do?”

*

Brewer, not the more famous Horford or Noah, is the Gators’ leading tournament scorer.

Brewer will also be their most important defender Saturday, his 6-foot-9 frame blanketing the Bruins’ Arron Afflalo, whom he shut down last spring.

But Brewer’s parents’ favorite photo has nothing to do with basketball.

It’s a snapshot of little Corey, dressed in a farm cap, jumpsuit and boots, helping his similarly dressed father at a tobacco auction.

Glenda brings out the framed photo, cradled carefully in her hand, one of her jewels.

“This here is all you need to know about Corey,” she says.

He was raised to work. He was taught that nothing would come easy or free. He remained on a job until it was completed, even if the only reward was the completion itself.

He drove a tractor for his father in the tobacco fields, then later helped him cut and strip and take it to auction.

He accompanied his father on hog killings, helping him strip as many as 30 to 40 head a day.

He did hard labor on his father’s construction sites, always staying until they were enveloped in thick Tennessee darkness.

In high school, he was probably the nation’s only top recruit who worked at Hardee’s.

He never received an allowance. If he needed something, his parents tried to buy it for him, usually at Wal-Mart, where they still shop.

Last spring, after helping Florida win a surprise national championship, Corey Brewer needed his parents for something else.

After two years as a Gator, he suddenly had an opportunity to turn pro. Coming off a national championship, his value was suddenly high. With his father struggling with diabetes and a heart condition, the monetary pressure was heavy.

He could leave school and nobody would blame him. In fact, if he left school, the other Gators stars pledged to follow him.

But he loved the college atmosphere, and loved his buddies, and wanted a chance to do something considered virtually impossible in this age of NBA defections.

He didn’t know whether his parents could afford for him to make his own choice.

But, finally, he decided he wanted a chance to stay in Gainesville and finish the job.

“It was a difficult decision,” Brewer remembers. “There were a lot of things involved.”

The pressure increased when, sitting around their Gainesville apartment, the team’s three stars vowed that they would stick together. Because Noah and Horford’s parents didn’t need the money, they could more easily stay.

“That left it pretty much up to Corey,” says Horford. “Knowing the difficulty of his circumstances, if he stays, how could we not stay?”

Finally, Brewer picked up the phone, called his father and told him he was torn between duty and dreams.

He was stunned when Pee Wee said he could have both.

“Follow your heart,” the elder Brewer told his son. “You will only go to college once. If you like it, stay there. Do not go to the NBA for us. Do not do anything for us.”

Brewer heard his father’s words and sighed.

The next day, the star Gators announced that they were all returning.

Today, they are two games from making a memory that will be priceless.

“It’s a good message for kids everywhere -- follow your heart and you never know what will happen,” Brewer says.

It is a message, perhaps, for parents as well.

“It’s not about us anymore,” Glenda says. “We’ve had our lives. It’s all about Corey now. It’s about his happiness, not ours.”

Here in Portland, it is a message that those parents must live every day, some days better than others.

Pee Wee spends his life painstakingly wheeling around the house because his wound has not healed enough for him to wear a prosthesis. He spends his nights in a small hospital bed crammed next to the big bed in the master bedroom.

Who knows if his recovery could have been expedited with more expensive medical care?

“Is money going to give him his leg back?” asks Glenda. “I don’t think so.”

They have not eaten at a restaurant in more than a year, their last visit having been to a Waffle House.

“I like steak, and Waffle House has good steak,” Pee Wee says.

Last night, their meal was cornbread, brown beans and slaw.

“Don’t need no meat if you have beans,” Pee Wee says.

The Brewers do not rent or attend movies. They never go on family vacations because Pee Wee has never flown.

On many days in this steamy patch of crabgrass, the most colorful things the Brewers own are their dreams.

But they do not dream of a bigger house.

“That just means you’ve got to do more cleaning,” Glenda says.

They do not dream of a garage.

“All we would do is fill it full of junk,” she says.

They dream, mostly, of times like this weekend, when they can watch their son chase his star and be happy doing it, and what parent wouldn’t give up a fortune for that?

“Friends tell me, ‘You could be a millionaire,’ ” says Glenda Brewer. “I tell them, ‘I feel like one already.’ ”

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.