news-record.com

HIGH POINT — Every school day Deuce Bello hits the gym two hours before the 8 a.m. classes start at Westchester Country Day School.

The morning sessions are his regimen for better basketball and grades -- with the aim of getting to an NCAA Division I program.

Bello is a top 100 national recruit, according to ESPN.com, and schools such as Clemson, Wake Forest, Baylor and Oklahoma State are scouting the 6-foot-3 junior.

He's probably best-known for highlight-reel dunks. Two have made ESPN in the last year.

Most recently, a between-the-legs jam at Burlington Christian Academy aired on ESPN in January. A double-alley-oop dunk from 2009, which also went to ESPN, has received more than 3.1 million views online.

"I work on dunks," he said. "Whatever comes to mind."

Bello said he began dunking in seventh grade, and these days he can hit the rim with a leap from almost as far as the free-throw line.

Even with such athletic ability, he didn't always have it easy.

Bello started high school at Ragsdale, where he didn't get tons of playing time as a freshman and needed help with schoolwork.

He also had a bit of an attitude, he said.

Then Bello started to work with Phil Tockman, a local tutor and personal coach who tutored his older brother, Ibrahim.

"Although people from the outside see the sports part, it's really not about that," Tockman said.

Tockman said Bello had to learn how to study, along with improve his game fundamentals and perspective.

Bello sees his development another way.

"On the court, if I didn't get the ball, I would get mad at myself or someone else," he said.

Tockman didn't tolerate that behavior, Bello said.

"He's not the type of person to sugar-coat things," Bello said. "After the game he talks to me, away from everyone else."

Over time, Tockman has assumed a father-figure role for Bello, whose dad didn't stick around to see him grow up.

"I don't really speak to him," Bello said of his father. "He hasn't been around my whole life."

Bello's mother, Bummy, came here from Nigeria in 1981, she said. She has raised sons Ibrahim, Deuce and Sadeeq.

Deuce and Sadeeq go to Westchester with the help of tuition assistance. Ibrahim is at Catawba College.

"I pay part of whatever I can," their mother said.

She takes photos of her son's dunks and blows them up into posters for his room.

"He loves this basketball so much that sometimes he has the ball in the bed with him," she said. "I ask him why he has that, and he says, 'I want the basketball to be with me.' "

Bello said that he has a few close friends, but no girlfriend.

"I don't have time for 'em," he said.

Not that he's aloof. After a light practice Thursday with the boys team, he joined a layup drill with the girls practice to hit a few dunks.

Lately he's been taking easy practices because of a broken left hand.

Meanwhile, younger students look to Bello with respect as a role model, according to Gardner Barrier, director of the Westchester Upper School.

Bello's coach at Westchester agrees.

"He used to be shy and keep his head down when he walked around," said coach Pat Kahny. "Now, he's the life of the party. He's grown so much as a person."

And Bello, who re-took his freshman year when he transferred to Westchester, said he belives that growth is ongoing.

Through the AAU basketball team, D-One Sports, he played with current Kentucky standout John Wall.

The two catch up by phone, and Bello is learning how Wall picked his way to a college program.

Bello plans to examine his college options after Westchester's upcoming playoff run. The state tournaments for the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association will begin Tuesday.

After his senior year at Westchester, Bello would like to play in college one year and then go to the NBA.

If not, then he'll keep working on his game and studies.

Which Bello said he expects to do, after talking to Wall.

"He said, 'If you don't get better, something is wrong,' " Bello said.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com