Rob is 15 and effortlessly leading the Los Alamitos freshman squad to a summer-league rout. But this is nothing: he scored 39 points, including 9 3-pointers, in a previous game. Spectators make little noise whenever he does something eye-catching. Instead, the small crowd mostly stares.
"God gave me a talent," Rob will say later. "He has a gift," says his mother, Kathy Brooks, as she watches her son from the stands. He basically has 1 leg.
"I do the best I can with what I have," says Rob, who lives in Seal Beach. "People are always surprised when they first see me. They'll say: 'Oh, isn't that great that they let him be on the team.' Then I hit a few shots." Soon the opposing coach starts yelling: "Get on him!"
That's remarkable considering he was born with only 1 normal leg. Don't ask Rob the name of his condition. He doesn't remember and couldn't care less. "I don't really think about it too much," he says.
For the record, Rob has proximal femoral focal deficiency, or PFFD, which left him with a malformed right hip and a shortened right femur. His right foot is about 2/3 the size of his left and protrudes from where his knee should be.
Rob compensates with a unique prosthesis and sheer effort. On the court, he has good balance and runs with a sort of hop-skip as he builds up momentum with his upper body to help swing his right leg forward.
Best anyone can figure, there is nobody quite like Rob. Part of it is his steadfast belief that he can do anything. Another reason is his parents' decision years ago not to take the advice of doctors who wanted to perform surgery on their son's leg.
He's a typical teenager who likes to skateboard and hang out with close friends. But he's also a promising young athlete and good student who is not the least bit self-conscious about his leg.
"The interesting thing about Robert is you very quickly forget he has a disability," says Barbara O'Connor, his principal for the past 3 years at Oak Middle School. "I once asked our P.E. people what they were doing for Robert. They said, 'Nothing, because he doesn't want it and he doesn't need it.'"
Not when he excels at everything he attempts. He was the best quarterback in the school's flag football intramural league. He was a little league all-star as a pitcher and first baseman. He won school high jump competitions by taking off his prosthesis and hopping on one leg.
"It's hard understanding how he does what he does because it should be close to impossible," O'Connor adds.
Former UCLA basketball coach and current Georgia coach Jim Harrick knows the feeling. He and Steve Brooks, Rob's father and the Los Alamitos varsity coach, have been friends for 25 years. He's watched Rob grow up. "I've seen him play on 1 leg at my basketball camp," Harrick adds. "It's astonishing. Kids just marvel at him. First they're taken back when he comes out on the floor with his prosthesis, then they're stunned when they see him play. But that's the kind of spirit he has."
Early on, Steve Brooks just hoped his son someday would be good enough that people wouldn't whisper that he made teams only because his dad was a coach. "Well, he's always been among the best on every team," Steve Brooks says. "I believe he's going to be able to play at the high school level, and I wouldn't put any limit on him because I know how driven he is."
Rob aspires to play at a division I college. But ask him if he views himself as special and he'll say, "Everybody's special." Then he thinks for a moment. Honesty gets the best of him. "Playing basketball, I guess I'm special," he adds.
It was a few days after Rob was born before his parents even heard the acronym PFFD. They would discover that little is known about the condition, including its cause, although it's known not to be genetic. Estimates of occurrence run as high as 1 in every 200,000 births. Most accurately projected at 1 in every 500,000 births.
The Brooks family had won a lottery nobody wants to win. "It's devastating when you realize that your child has a problem when he's born," says Kathy, who like her husband is a Los Alamitos teacher. "But I allowed myself 1 day of self-pity, then we decided to attack it." They visited doctors around the country and found a limited number of treatment options. None of them were appealing.
They could remove most of his foot and fuse the knee. Then Rob could be treated as an above-the-knee amputee. There was a leg-lengthening procedure, but he wasn't a good candidate.
The other possibility was something called the Van Nes Rotation, where doctors turn the leg 180 degrees so the reversed ankle can be used as a knee and the foot can be disguised inside an artificial limb. But that often requires several operations.
That the doctors couldn't agree on 1 option was a flashing red light for Kathy. She didn't feel it was she and Steve's right even though Rob still was just a baby to amputate a part of his body. Also, by 8 months old, Rob already was walking on a tiny prosthesis.
So they chose a path that few parents of PFFD children take and said no to any procedure. "We were told, 'That would be very irresponsible,'" Kathy says. "They made us feel like horrible parents. One doctor told us that when he got older, the foot would look offensive. But if we had done the sort of things the experts were recommending, he would have been in and out of hospitals his entire life."
Mark Moseley, then a UCLA staff prosthetist, offered an alternative. He believed he could design a prosthesis that would use Rob's ankle the way it was like a knee.
Rob still wears a device based on Moseley's original model. "To my knowledge, he had an option of prosthetic design that no other child has ever had," says Moseley, now a Los Angeles chiropractor. "Kids who have the Van Nes procedure cannot do what Bobby does. He can do more than an above-the-knee amputee because he can still use the foot."
The only surgery Rob ever had was to fuse his knee for greater stability. Kathy adds that if her son wants to amputate his foot in the future it will be his decision. For now, he makes no effort to conceal it, usually wearing shorts.
"The one major drawback to Robert's leg is his foot sticks out a little bit," Steve says. "But he doesn't care. A lot of times when he goes to the beach, he won't even take his leg with him because he doesn't want to get sand into it. As he gets older, it will be at more of a downward angle, and less of an issue at all."
Steve and Kathy say their choice might not be right for every family that has a child with PFFD. But it was the correct one for them. "I'm thankful for what they did," Rob says. "I can't imagine what my life would be like if they had done anything differently."
At a young age he could roller skate, ice skate, and ride a bike. Before Rob entered kindergarten, Steve and Kathy met with teachers and counselors about how he would adjust. The first day of school, Rob sat down on the floor and started showing the other kids his leg.
When he was in the fourth grade, Kathy got a call from another mother. She explained that her boy attended school with Rob. "She told me, 'My son says your son has a device on his leg that makes him run faster, jump higher, and be a better athlete than the other kids. I was just wondering what it was, how much it costs, and where I could get one,'" Kathy recalls. "I don't think the mother knew what to say when I explained Robert's situation."
The word "normal" constantly is used to describe Rob. "He doesn't project any 'woe is me' and I attribute that to Kathy and Steve," O'Connor says. "They also have this huge extended family that is so close-knit. Rob's grandparents are at all of his games. They've all done their best just to treat him as normally as possible."
Rob can't explain his I'm like everybody else approach to life. You might as well ask him why he has to breathe. "I'm just me," he says. "I don't get embarrassed and I don't back down to anything or anybody. I see people with disabilities, but I don't really hang around them. I don't really think I'm disabled, because so far there is nothing I'm not able to do. I just never felt like I needed that support-group stuff. I've got my friends, my mom and my dad, the game, and my faith."
He comes from a devout family and is active in Bible study. "I know that God is with me in everything I do," Rob adds. The father has learned from the son. "Robert has been a tremendous blessing in our lives," Steve says. "I know he's changed the way I look at things. You don't complain about a lot. You see the world in a totally different way." And the son has learned from the father, including everything he knows about basketball.
Starting at age 3, Rob became his dad's shadow in the gym. "I'd be talking to my players during timeouts, and his head would be right in the middle (of the huddle)," Steve says.
Nothing has changed. If it's not a game in the local freshman league or a Las Vegas tournament, then he's playing pickup at a health club or a nearby Seal Beach park. He goes to the Final Four every spring, and even attends the coaching clinics with his dad. After basketball, Rob will pursue a career in coaching college and professional basketball.
In a couple of years he could be playing for his father on the Los Al Varsity. He's only 5-foot-7, but his size-12 foot shoe and his dad's 6-foot-5 stature gives him hope that he's due for a growth spurt. "He plays like a coach on the floor," Steve says. "He's as competitive as any player I've coached. But whatever he does in life, coaching or a career in something other then basketball, he's going to be very successful."
Basketball currently is at center stage in his universe. "I have to do everything longer, harder," Rob says. "It's not because I have to catch up. It's because I want to be the best. If I continue to work hard, I don't see why I can't keep it up." Or maybe stay 1 step ahead."
