"Basketball looked fun," he said. "It felt like someone like me could belong."

His father scraped together enough to buy a used basketball. The court, however, was unforgiving. The prosthetic chafed, his balance wobbled, and other boys ran circles around him. "I couldn't beat anyone," he said. "I wanted to give up."

But he did not.

"I cried at night," Memettursunjan recalled. "But, in the morning, I told myself: 'Real men don't quit.'"

'Pushing forward'

Outside his home, Memettursunjan tied a bent wire hoop to a tree and practiced for hours — shooting, chasing rebounds on one good leg, falling and getting back up. He learned to play smarter. If he could not outrun opponents, he could outthink them. If he could not jump, he could pass.

The work paid off. He made the school team, not as a special case, but through grit and skill.

Coach Hu Deliang still remembers a warm-up session when Memettursunjan's prosthetic leg detached in front of everyone. "He calmly picked it up, reattached it, and said, 'I'm fine, coach,'" Hu said. "He was more afraid I'd stop him from training."