Brother's resolve inspires

Greg Hansbrough overcomes the odds

CHAPEL HILL -- On the rare occasions Tyler Hansbrough does not feel like pushing up one more bench press, shooting one more hook shot or running one more sprint, the North Carolina forward simply thinks about his older brother, Greg.

Then he does 10 more of each.

"If someone told you [that] you might not be able to ever walk again, then you go out there and run marathons and prove everybody wrong, that's greater than any basketball game to me,'' said the two-time All-America.

"Some people look at hard work as something different ... but what he's done is so much greater than what I'm doing now."

Seventeen years ago, Greg Hansbrough's battle with a brain tumor -- and his determination to walk, talk and play basketball again after its removal partially paralyzed the left side of his body -- set an example for his two younger brothers that has never waned. Work hard, play tough, and never give up.

He will not be at Rupp Arena today when the top-ranked Tar Heels face Kentucky (he's studying for semester exams at the University of Missouri). But his presence will be felt -- particularly by those trying to guard the 6-foot-9, 250-pound brother dubbed "Psycho T."

"He probably would have been a better player than both of us if not for what happened to him as a little kid," said Ben Hansbrough, the youngest of the brothers and a starting guard at Mississippi State. "... But I think he's inspired both of us, Tyler and me, to be better."

A dire prognosis

Family members say Greg was the most athletic of the boys at age 7 1/2. He loved baseball and basketball. "... They'd have their little track meets and things [at school], and when Gregory was in an event, everyone else was just competing for second," said Gene Hansbrough, the boys' father. "He could out-run and out-jump everybody."

Greg was practicing left-handed layups on mini-hoops in the basement when his father, an orthopedic surgeon, noticed his left hand looked clumsy.

Tests revealed a juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma -- a slow-growing, locally malignant tumor at the base of his brain. The prognosis was dire, and Gene found only one neurosurgeon, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was willing to operate. Still, the Hansbroughs were warned that if he survived the procedure, Greg might never be able to walk again.

Ben was 3 years old at the time, and does not remember much. Tyler, who was 5, sensed something was not right.

"I remember visiting the hospital ... and I remember going through there and seeing all these people, and I saw my brother Greg, and he was in really bad shape," said Tyler, who considered his big brother his best friend. "That's when it first kind of hit me that, 'Man, something's really wrong with my brother.' And you know how parents are when you're really young; they don't really give you the full details. So I didn't know the severity of it until later."

Greg, now 24, remembers waking up in the hospital with his vision blurry and his left side practically motionless. Doctors did not know if he would ever step out of a wheelchair, but to Greg -- who was in a rehabilitation center in Minnesota for several weeks -- it was never in question. He had incentive.

"They don't know this, but I missed Tyler and Ben like it wasn't anybody's business while I was up there," Greg said. "I wanted to see my brothers again ... I wanted to play with my brothers again."

Starting over

He was back on his feet when he returned to his family home in Poplar Bluff, Mo., but he was weak and wobbly. Gene set up weights in the basement to help strengthen his left side, then a punching bag to take out his frustrations when kids teased him at school. Eventually, Greg relearned how to ride a bike -- something doctors told him he would never do. He learned to shoot free throws with one hand. He started "wrassling" with his little brothers in the basement again.