Gant happy to walk on

At 22, Khaliq Gant is getting a sneak preview of old age. When he awakes, and it’s time to fight gravity on foot, his legs and back always argue against it. Only after a little persuasion and a lot of stretching does he manage to get through the stiffness that settles in overnight.

“On the whole, though, I’m thankful just to be able to get up out of bed every day,” he said.

Over the next three weeks, hundreds of stories will unfold about college basketball’s young aerialists as they hurdle the brackets of March Madness. Gant is among the most stirring of them, even if he does move a little stiffly and can’t jump over a metropolitan phone book. Wearing a shirt and tie instead of shorts and a jersey, he’ll be playing his part in this NCAA tournament from the end of the Cornell University bench.

Grab a quick glimpse of Gant while you can. The Ivy League champions usually are among the first to succumb in the 65-team tournament.

It has been just over three years since Dana Gant got the phone call at her home in Norcross, one nurse informing another about a freakish accident on a Cornell basketball court. Dana’s youngest son had suffered a traumatic injury to his spine —- it wasn’t made to twist like a licorice whip —- and he had no movement below his shoulders. Surgery was imminent. The prognosis was vague.

Dana remembers falling to her knees, screaming something indecipherable at the top of her lungs. And she remembers, when finally speaking to Khaliq, the first words that soothed her.

“He said to me in calm, detached voice, ‘Ma, I’m gonna be OK.’ Once Khaliq says something, that’s it. When he told me he was going to be OK in that way, I believed him,” Dana said.

Khaliq’s OK.

His sense of humor is intact. In the summer of 2005, “there wasn’t a dunk [Gant] couldn’t do,” Cornell assistant coach Zach Spiker said. Now, Gant figures his vertical leap to be about 3 inches —- maybe.

“Another 30 to go,” Gant joked.

And his shot is coming back. It was just a couple of weeks ago that Gant regained enough strength on his right side to shoot a basketball 21 feet. Off to the side in the Cornell gym, he made his first 3-pointer since early ‘06.

“I don’t think anyone noticed, but it was a personal triumph,” Gant said.

“To be there in those early weeks when all he was doing was barely able to shrug his shoulder, to today, making 3-pointers on the side … well, it’s remarkable,” Spiker said.

On Jan. 24, 2006, during a particularly spirited practice, Gant dived for a loose ball. Three teammates had the same idea. They got up after the collision. Gant didn’t.

He was a slight 6-3 sophomore guard still finding his way as a player, a 19-minute-a-game guy with good range whose ups and downs averaged out to a couple points and assists a game.

He grew up in Norcross and played a season each at Holy Innocents’ and Woodward Academy before going to prep school up north. Wherever he went, Gant took a powerful love for basketball with him.

The injury was the kind you’d expect in football, or in a high-speed head-on collision on the New York Thruway. He had a 50 percent dislocation of his upper spine, rendering most of his body immobile. During a seven-hour surgery, doctors installed a titanium plate that still stabilizes the injured area. They left open the question of ever walking again, to be answered by Gant’s will and the ability of his damaged nerves to recover.

“We never did entertain the idea he would never walk,” said Dana Gant, who at the time was a nurse at DeKalb Medical Center.

Transferred to Atlanta and the Shepherd Center, Gant began the slow rehabilitation that continues today.

In small increments, he’d regain control over the body that once had moved so effortlessly. By late March of ‘06, he stood upright. A month later, he took his first assisted steps on a treadmill. That fall, he returned to school.

Today, his mother estimates Gant is at about 65 percent of his former mobility, his walk a little awkward, his run more of a shuffle.

Gant never would play college basketball again, but he remained with the Cornell team, helping at practice where he could. It has been a confusing experience.

“It’s bittersweet. I definitely want to be out there playing, and being here every day reminds me how much I miss it,” he said. “But on the other hand, it has been good to encourage [the other players] and see them working hard every day. That encourages me to work hard to get back to who I want to be.”

Gant will travel with Cornell to Boise, Idaho, to face Missouri in the tournament’s first round Friday. One last hurrah for the wounded player and his underdog team.

He graduates in May with a communications degree —- and who will appreciate the commencement walk more? He has a job waiting in New York, in sales and marketing with the Gallo wine people.

One challenge remains.

“For all the progress I’ve made, the final step is to get back to the point where I can play [recreationally]. Whether I want to or not, I want to be able to have the choice,” Gant said.

Having downsized his doubts a long time ago, Spiker said, “I think he’ll make it there.”

TODAY’S FIRST-ROUND GAMES

LSU vs. Butler, 12:20 p.m.

Memphis vs. CS Northridge, 12:25 p.m. (CBS)

BYU vs. Texas A&M, 12:30 p.m.

Purdue vs. Northern Iowa, 2:30 p.m.

North Carolina vs. Radford, 2:50 p.m. (CBS)

California vs. Maryland, 2:55 p.m.

Connecticut vs. Chattanooga, 3 p.m.

Washington vs. Mississippi State, 5 p.m.

Clemson vs. Michigan, 7:10 p.m. (CBS)

Texas vs. Minnesota, 7:10 p.m.

Villanova vs. American, 7:20 p.m.

Gonzaga vs. Akron, 7:25 p.m.

Duke vs. Binghamton, 9:40 p.m. (CBS)

Oklahoma vs. Morgan State, 9:40 p.m.

UCLA vs. VCU, 9:50 p.m.

Illinois vs. Western Kentucky, 9:55 p.m.

On ajc.com/sports: Last chance: Entries for Mark Bradley’s Final Four Fiasco are due before noon today.