Just call him dad

The worst day might have been the first day, in December 2005, after school in an empty locker room at Cedar Springs High. Austin Thornton handed girlfriend Emily Esch four pregnancy tests and watched them all come back baby blue.

"Nice spot to find out," he said, "you know?"

Or it might have been a few days later, the way his mom seemed to know and got it out of him, the shock on his dad's face.

Or the intense meeting with Emily's parents.

Or the first time he stepped to the free-throw line in a road game, with a hostile crowd ready to pounce:

"WHO'S YOUR DADDY!" (clap-clap, clap-clap-clap).

"I WANT MY BABY-BACK, BABY-BACK, BABY-BACK!"

"ROCK-A-BYE-BABY, IN THE TREETOP ... "

The best day? There have been many since Aug. 3, 2006, the day Carson McRae Thornton was born and his father turned 18. A difficult and complicated situation remains so, but Austin is approaching the challenge of fatherhood just as he's chasing a spot in the Michigan State playing rotation.

"He's always been a gamer, and he's handled fatherhood with the same vigor - 'Let's rock,' " said Austin's father, Thomas.

"I made the decision," said Austin, a former walk-on who is now on scholarship and will be a third-year sophomore next season. "I got myself in trouble, and now it's up to me to make that decision right."

MSU was recruiting Austin earnestly in December '05, with then-assistant Jim Boylen - a native of nearby Grand Rapids - becoming close to the family.

Kalin Lucas gave a verbal commitment to MSU that month, followed soon after by friends Durrell Summers and Chris Allen. Just like that, there was no more room for Thornton in the class of 2007.

Change of plans

There were plenty of other scholarship offers for the 6-foot-5 guard, though - virtually all the Mid-American Conference schools including Western Michigan and Central Michigan, along with St. Louis, Indiana State and the U.S. Naval Academy.

Providence, Xavier and Butler were showing interest. Austin's mind was under heavy strain.

Shortly after Austin, Emily and their parents got together for what Emily called "an 'I can't believe this is happening' meeting," the news began to leak out.

The Esches live in Ada, the Thorntons a half-hour away in Sand Lake. In between is Cedar Springs, where Austin and Emily attended school and played sports.

The whole area buzzed, and Austin's status as a star athlete made the story all the more salacious.

"There was some stuff going around on the Internet," Austin said. "Any time a kid from the country gets a girl pregnant, it's going to be big news. Basically, it spread like wildfire, and the next week the entire town knew. It was a whole big mess."

Of bigger concern was the source of the whispers. Austin and Emily had to decide what to do.

Abortion "was never a consideration with us," Austin said. Adoption was. His mother, Sara, encouraged the couple to look into it. Austin was too afraid, he said, to have an opinion. The couple went to some adoption counseling sessions, but Emily was unwavering. They'd be raising this baby.

Birthday boy

Excitement finally started to replace some of the trepidation in July 2006. Emily was due on Aug. 5.

On Aug. 2, she and Austin hung out all afternoon, then she went home to make him chocolate chip cookies for his birthday the next day.

The contractions started at 10:30 p.m. It didn't take long for Emily and her parents, Richard and Terese, to bolt for the hospital.

At 12:30 a.m., a 6-pound, 13-ounce baby boy arrived. Austin - officially an adult for less than an hour - got there just after Carson was delivered and helped give him his first bath.

"It was very cool," Austin said. "At that point, it was like, 'Wow, he's here.' I stayed in the hospital that night, so that was my first experience of getting up at 3 and taking care of a crying baby."

The couple had a month before their senior year of high school to experience something close to parenting normalcy. Austin gave up his senior season as starting quarterback for child care.

Then their parents tried to help the couple experience teenage normalcy.

"It hasn't been easy, but we've embraced being grandparents," Sara Thornton said. "That was the easy part. The hard part was making sure Austin didn't get overwhelmed with it."

Carson lived with the Esches, as he does today, and spent part of each week with the Thorntons. When Carson was 2 months old, Austin wanted him to stay overnight - resulting in a 3 a.m. wake-up and a screaming match between Austin and Sara over whether to turn the light on to change his diaper.

"I'd say that was my official awakening," Austin said. "After that, I told Emily, 'If you can handle him at night, I'll take him in the day when he's happy.' "

Staying close by

Without Carson, Austin probably wouldn't be playing basketball in East Lansing. He'd probably be out of state somewhere, on a full scholarship.

Thomas Thornton suggested his son try to make the MSU team as a walk-on. The Spartan coaches loved the idea. So did Emily.

Austin would be able to fulfill his dream of competing at the highest level, and he'd be less than 90 minutes away.

When Maurice Joseph transferred to Vermont in the summer of 2007, Thornton was put on scholarship for his first year at MSU.

Last season, Thomas, an independent businessman who sells acoustic materials and metal products, paid Austin's way, but Austin now is back on scholarship.

The grandparents have assumed most of the financial burden that comes with a small child, although Emily - a nursing student at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids - has a waitressing job and a paid internship to help.

Austin has a summer job amid school and offseason workouts. He has "more than a fighting man's chance" to be in the playing rotation next season, MSU coach Tom Izzo said. But Austin finds time to zip home whenever possible to see Carson.

"What I really respect about him is I think he put (Carson) to the forefront," Izzo said of Austin. "A lot of kids don't take that responsibility, and he did."

Austin misses his son and goes without him for weeks at a time during basketball season. Emily misses Austin's help and sometimes feels like the "bad guy" when she disciplines Carson.

Austin and Emily broke up in March, not for the first time but perhaps for the last.

"It's been rough," Austin said.

But today is Father's Day, and Austin and Carson have some boating planned after church.

It could be a memory maker, like the day Carson took his first steps. And the day he said his first word (it was "ball," of course).

And the day, during MSU's March run to the Final Four, when Sara called Austin to tell him that Carson had walked up to the TV screen and rattled off the names of the other players on the team.

"They're my cousins," Carson announced.

'No feeling like it'

The good days are slam- dunking the bad ones. Austin's favorites are the afternoon games at Breslin Center, when he can look up from the bench and see Carson clapping along with the MSU fight song.

"Then he comes into the locker room after the game and gives me a giant hug and says, 'Da-da,' and there's no feeling like it," Austin said.