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GREENSBORO — Will Saunders' life changed when he turned the shower knob to hot instead of cold.

He had just left everything he knew in England to pursue a life of basketball in America, but now this unexpected burst of scalding water sent him looking for refuge "and there's really nowhere to go in a shower when you're 6-foot-7," Rocky Hartman said.

Saunders' left ankle sliced against the shower door, severing 90 percent of his Achilles' tendon. When doctors told him it would be a year before he could play again, Saunders felt his dream whimper and tuck its tail.

"I hated basketball for a little bit," Saunders said. "This was the whole reason I came here, and it wasn't going to work out. But people at Caldwell kept saying, this is God pushing you to see how hard you want it."

He wanted it. Saunders signed a letter of intent Monday with South Carolina-Upstate, a long-awaited piece of good news to tell his mom on their daily phone call.

"It's a blessing, man," he said. "There are a lot better players than me who don't get this opportunity."

Saunders grew up in the hardscrabble East London borough of Leytonstone, where he and his older brother Aiden would ride the subway around town at night searching for an open gym. They'd play pickup games on rims with no nets until somebody kicked them out.

His mother, Monica, fled Nigeria before he was born, and she worked long hours in England as a tax specialist to support her two sons. Saunders hasn't spoken with his father in years.

"Every day was a struggle back home," he said.

Basketball became his refuge and Monica's partner in "keeping me away from the wrong people." Saunders rose through the club ranks and could have made a brief living playing semipro ball, but he wanted an education and a chance to someday work in graphic design. When he decided the best chance to do that was across the ocean, Mom said go for it. She has never seen him play.

"She could always tell that anything basketball made my face light up," Saunders said. "She knew that was my dream."

Saunders flew here for the first time two years ago for a camp in Pittsburgh "to show these Americans how to play." There he met then-Northwest Guilford coach Manny Bloom, who convinced him to enroll here, and rising Vikings senior guard Tyler Hartman, who suggested he might live with his family on their 50-acre lot.

When Saunders decided to take the plunge, he was crushed to find out he was two weeks past the July deadline to transfer to Northwest. He was convinced that was the end, that "I'd just finish school in England and find some job."

But Patti Hartman and her husband, Rocky, couldn't bear to see the story end that way. She reached out to family friend Greg Page, whose son Michael plays for Caldwell Academy. The school found scholarships to pay half of Saunders' tuition, and within days parents had contributed the rest.

Saunders missed all but one game his junior year with the Achilles' injury, and he only returned after nine excruciating months of rehab in which he'd use a rubber band to stretch his leg and spell the alphabet over and over and over. He averaged 21 points and 11 rebounds this season, earned All-TAC and NCISAA All-State honors and led Caldwell to its first playoff berth.

He is the picture of gratitude. Before he came here, Saunders tattooed his mother's name on his chest, a best-he-could-do thank you for every sacrifice she made. Whenever he'd complain about the pain of rehab, Monica would gently remind him she used to live on the streets in Nigeria and perspective would be restored. His goal is to fly her here to see him play in college.

"I do it all for her," he said. "I don't need a dad when I've got my mom."

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com