PITTSBURGH -- The scouting report on Penn State-Altoona freshman guard Erin Johnson hasn't changed much since that day in fourth grade when she decided basketball was her game.

Don't give her an open 3-pointer, or she will bury it. Don't let her jab step with her right foot, or she will blow by you to the left. Don't try to trap her, because she is much too quick and poised to be rattled by pressure.

All standard stuff for a player who can score from the outside or inside, distribute assists, lead a team and disrupt an opponent's top scorer.

But this scouting report isn't routine: Erin Johnson has only one full arm.

Despite being born with a congenital disorder that caused her left arm to stop at the elbow, Johnson scored 1,000 points at Claysburg-Kimmel High School in one of Pennsylvania's toughest small-school leagues. Not only was she good, she was good enough to land at Division III Penn State-Altoona.

Now, the competition is better, faster, taller. But Johnson never seems to fall behind, just as when she learned to swim, ride a bike, tie her shoes and catch a ball as early and as well as her friends. She started as a freshman in high school and is starting again part-time as a college freshman, averaging three points and a steal a game on a team loaded with nine freshmen.

One arm, sure, but no inhibitions.

"A lot of people who haven't seen her before take a step back and say, 'What's wrong with her?' " Penn State-Altoona coach Diana Krull said. "The next thing they know, she's made a couple of 3s."

Soon after Erin was born 18 years ago, her mother, Elaine Crist, was warned her daughter faced many obstacles she might never overcome. As it turned out, it soon was the other girls who were getting left behind.

"I can remember only once when I told her she couldn't do something," said Crist, who married Erin's stepfather, Dan Crist, when her daughter was 5. "In the fourth grade, she wanted to play the piccolo, and I had to tell her no. That was the first time, and I don't know if I've told her since she couldn't do something."

Her stepfather was a high school basketball coach, and Erin idolized him. But her parents did not shove her into athletics, perhaps because she was doing all the pushing herself.

"My dad had an elementary school league and it seemed right from the start, I was always able to do everything," Johnson said before a recent game.

Even if it took time, and many confounded stares from strangers, Johnson proved she was no different than any other player. Make that any other star player.

"I would always walk into gyms, and people would point and look at me, wondering what I was doing out there," she said. "But I was never hesitant about playing. It just seemed natural. I don't even remember learning how to play."

Erin's stepdad also was her coach at Claysburg-Kimmel, located in the mountainous terrain of western Pennsylvania near Altoona, about 75 miles east of Pittsburgh. For a short while during her freshman year, there was idle talk that Dan Crist played her only because she was his daughter.

	“	I've always been proud of myself, but I never let anyone know about it. ”
		— Erin Johnson

A very short while.

"After she hit about five 3s against us as a sophomore, any sympathy our players might have had evaporated," Williamsburg coach Jeff Appleman said.

Johnson always was more eager to pass than shoot, even as the points piled up. She ranks second in Claysburg-Kimmel history in assists.

"Nobody ever took pity on her," her mother said. "Everybody always played her just as hard."

When she began tournament play last season, Johnson needed seven points to reach 1,000 points. But for one of the few times, scoring was on her mind, and her shooting suffered as she missed 17 of 20 shots.

But as time ran down in a career-ending loss to Williamsburg, a remarkable event occurred. Assured of victory, Appleman called a timeout and ran a special out-of-bounds play -- not for one of his players, but for Johnson.

Williamsburg flipped the ball to Johnson, allowing her to drive for a layup -- and her 1,000th point -- just before the game ended.

Afterward, there was scant talk the mark was cheapened because she needed help to score, even though a similar play involving former Connecticut star Nykesha Sales created a stir nationwide several years ago.

"You probably wouldn't do that for the average person, but Erin was special to a lot of people," Elaine Crist said. "She got lots of mail, cards and letters, plants and flowers, all kinds of gifts."

The best gift of all was the chance to play college basketball. Krull says she never hesitated for a moment to recruit her.

"Oh, heavens no, not one little bit," said Krull, whose team is 9-11 and is third in the Allegheny Mountain Conference. "I knew she could make the adjustment. She's very inspirational to the other players; if she's able to do the things she does, the other girls can never make an excuse."

Last summer, Johnson and several athletes who overcame physical conditions or injuries, including cyclist Lance Armstrong, were presented with the ARETE award for courage in sports. Among those honoring her were Mary Lou Retton and Jim McMahon.

She enjoyed the ceremony in Chicago, and meeting all the famous names. But she soon realized she did not need the positive reinforcement it provided to assure her of her legitimacy as an athlete.

"A friend told me once, 'It's not that you're good for having one arm. You're good compared to everyone else,' " Johnson said. "I've always been proud of myself, but I never let anyone know about it."