Lucky's shot

''I wake up every day, look at my watch, and say, 'It's real,'" says Blust, now in his third season with the Celtics. At 30 years old -- yet looking far younger -- Blust did not come upon this impish job haphazardly. When he was 3, he started doing handstands on the top stairs of his parents' house, and when he frightened his mother, he'd face forward by the edge and say, ''Look, Ma, even scarier!"

''My mother said, 'This kid's gonna kill himself; I've gotta get him some formal training,' " he says, revealing an easy, warm smile and twinkling blue eyes.

She enrolled him in gymnastics classes at the YMCA in his hometown of Lancaster, Pa. Excelling quickly, he soon switched to a privately owned gym. By age 7, he began competing, and at 9, Blust made his first of what would become many newspaper headlines, winning his first all-around title in the United States Gymnastics Federation state championship. He would go on to win 10 more times and once came in third place in the federation's East Coast Region 7 championships.

At ages 11 and 13, he was one of the top 50 young gymnasts in the country selected to train at the United States Olympic Training Center.

Then something happened to the award-winning gymnast. Hormones. Girls. Rebellion. He wanted to spend less time around gyms and more time being a regular teenager, he says. He got a girl-friend and started attending more parties and fewer gymnastics practices. The other athletes edged past him for the top spots and, ultimately, he lost his chances for a full gymnastics scholarship to college. He also lost his ticket to the Olympics. His gymnastics career had, as he puts it, tumbled. ''No pun intended," he says, the devilish smile surfacing again.