Starting over

Jahaziel Howard witnessed up close a ride to the top of the basketball world, and he made similar plans.

By the end of his senior season at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, Howard watched his older brother, Dwight Howard, grow from a high school phenom to the focal point of an NBA franchise. He watched his sibling go from the first overall pick by the Orlando Magic in the 2004 NBA Draft to a standout at the 2007 All-Star Game.

As Jahaziel Howard left the Class 1A private high school to play Division I college basketball, his goal was to blaze his own trail to the league.

He didn’t even know that Muscle Shoals existed, let alone expect to wind up playing junior college basketball here.

Yet a year and two universities later, Howard landed at Northwest-Shoals Community College, an unexpected detour that he’s making the most of.

In his first season playing basketball since high school, the 6-foot-6, 220-pound swingman is averaging 21.9 points a game at Northwest-Shoals, the third-best mark in the Alabama Community College Conference.

More importantly, Howard said, he’s using the experience to get a fresh start to his basketball career.

The journey began at Oral Roberts University, where Howard signed out of high school. He arrived on campus with a lingering injury, a labral tear in his shoulder, the result of playing basketball his senior year with an old football injury he sustained as a high school quarterback.

Surgery and recovery kept him from playing, and Howard said he grew restless in Tulsa, Okla., about a 12-hour drive from his home. So he decided to transfer to Central Florida, located in his brother’s new hometown of Orlando and a seven-hour drive from Atlanta.

That stint also was shortlived. Because of what he called “miscommunication,” Howard said he didn’t hit it off with UCF head coach Kirk Speraw. Admittedly, he lost focus, got off track academically and left the program a few months later.

“The head coach and I didn’t really get along, so I was looking for a fresh start,” Howard said. “I was a freshman. I think UCF has 45,000 students there. I got to know all about college. If I could do it all again, I probably would have stayed at UCF.”

While at UCF, Howard stayed in contact with Jonathan Dunn, a former teammate at Oral Roberts who was being recruited to Northwest-Shoals by Patriots signee Patrick Powell, a friend of Dunn’s from his hometown of Columbus, Ga.

“I wasn’t really playing and wanted to get back closer to home,” Dunn said. “I told Jahaziel where I was going, and he eventually came along later in the summer.”

Howard said there was an acclimation period coming from Orlando to the Shoals, from Division I to juco.

“It’s been a big adjustment. I’ve missed the city,” he said. “There was always something to do. But here, you know, it’s a much slower pace. But I think the time here definitely settled me down and got me focused on basketball. There’s good and bad to it. I don’t necessarily like it, but I need it.

“Just from practicing (at the Division I level), it’s not as fast-paced or as physical (in junior college),” Howard added. “Playing styles, defense, intensity — you can definitely tell the difference.”

It’s not that he’s pretentious. His teammates vouch for that.

“He’s down to earth,” Patriots point guard Roderick Lanon said. “He acts like everybody else. He treats everybody the same. If you didn’t know who his brother was, you would never know just by talking to him.”

Added Dunn: “He doesn’t really talk about it a lot because I think he feels everybody will hold him to a standard comparing him to his brother. I think he wants to be known for what he can do on his own.”

Howard, a redshirt freshman, hopes to continue making strides at that next season back at the Division I level. He said he has been offered a scholarship by Alabama-Birmingham, which plays in Conference USA with UCF.

“I’ll most likely be at UAB next year,” Howard said. “So I can play UCF; I’ll be looking forward to that game.”

In the meantime, he’ll still seek advice from his brother, except when it pertains to colleges.

“He can’t really advise me on that,” Howard joked. “But he just tells me to work hard, stay out of the scene, stay grounded, just stuff he applies to his life.”

He’ll also continue to visit Orlando in the summer to work out with his brother and fellow Magic players and temporarily live like an NBA superstar, a goal he hopes to achieve one day, when he can reflect on his more meager but necessary collegiate journey.

“I think everything happens for a reason,” Howard said. “I’m not going to complain about being here. I’m just going to try to have a good season. I think it will make me appreciate things more.”

Bryan App can be reached at 740-5730 or bryan.app@timesdaily.com.