4-Foot-6 Starting Point Guard's Got Game

March 20, 2009— -- Tiffara Steward stands just 4-foot-6 in her size one Air Jordans. At only 90 pounds, the 20-year-old is the star of her college basketball team at Farmingdale State College on Long Island, N.Y.

Though she may be the shortest college basketball player of all time, Steward rushes her opponents and runs rings around even the tallest girls.

"The other fans just can't believe how little she is, and the next thing you know she's knocking down shots or making a steal, or going in for a layup," said Coach Chris Mooney.

As starting point guard and a co-captain of the Farmingdale Rams, defense is her specialty.

"My favorite position is point guard. I like to dribble and bring up the ball a lot -- show off a couple moves, maybe," she said with a laugh. "It's a possibility, I'd be a secret weapon. "

Because of her size, Steward never thought she'd play basketball at the college level. Her own sister was turned down by a college team because she was too short at 5-foot-2.

Instead, Steward planned to study business at Syracuse University. Then she got the call from Farmingdale, which said she could study business and play basketball.

"The decision was kind of easy," she said. "I get to go to school and basketball? And it was cheaper too. I was like, 'Yeah, jackpot!'"

Steward has refused to let life's bad bounces keep her out of the game. Born three months premature, she weighed just over two pounds.

"The first thing that the doctors told me was that her cornea hadn't developed, which left her to be blind in that one eye," said her mother, Vanessa Jones-Steward. "By the time she was three, she had already had six surgeries."

Scoliosis left one leg shorter than the other. Some vertebrae didn't develop and she is missing a rib. She's blind in one eye, and partially deaf. But on the court, it all fades away.

"I didn't even know any of her disabilities ... when she came here the first day of practice," said Mooney. "I mean, I still didn't know. She told me she couldn't see in one eye."