Shooting star, after 'Idol'

She tackled and blocked on a football team in middle school and fondly remembers doing push-ups, sit-ups, and hill runs with her ex-Marine coach shouting instructions.

She's looking forward to basketball season this fall at Boston College and has already begun lifting weights to prepare.

Ayla Brown isn't afraid of hard work. She thrives on it.

''I'm probably one of the hardest workers you'll ever meet," she said. ''I don't take anything for granted. If you said that I could have something for free without working for it, I'd say I don't think so. I'd rather put in the hard work and do it for myself and not for anyone else."

Brown, 17, is slowly fading from the spotlight after a few weeks of fame this winter as one of the final 16 contestants competing on the popular ''American Idol" TV show. She sang her heart out on numbers like ''Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield and ''I Want You to Need Me" by Celine Dion.

Now, she is back in the real world, returning to her pre-Idol routine as a teenager in Wrentham.

She said she was surprised and disappointed when she was voted off the show, but she believes she sent a message.

''My main goal was to be a role model for younger girls," she said. ''And I can truly say that I've accomplished that now, just from being on the show and telling people that you can do both, be an athlete and a singer or performer. Or just do multiple things and not have to choose one."

Brown grew up in Wrentham, a town of about 11,000 people. Her parents are well known themselves: her father is Republican state Senator Scott Brown; her mother is WCVB-TV (Channel 5) newscaster Gail Huff. She has a younger sister, Arianna. They live in a spacious, comfortable home at the end of a cul-de-sac, with a basketball hoop in the driveway.

She first gained widespread attention playing basketball at Noble and Greenough, a private school in Dedham. A two-time Gatorade state player of the year, two-time league MVP, and five-time All New-England selection, the 6-foot Brown scored 2,358 points during her high school career.

She'll graduate as the all-time leading basketball scorer -- boy or girl, she'll remind you -- for the school.

Her coach, Alex Keenan-Gallagher, has been impressed by her work ethic. He remembered her asking to speak to him after she committed at the end of her sophomore year to attending Boston College, which has a strong Division 1 women's basketball program.

''She said, 'I need to start working on getting ready to play at the next level. What do I need to do to be ready to play there in two years?' " Gallagher said. Rather than resting on her laurels, he said, ''she worked almost obsessively to get there."

Brown credits her parents with teaching her the fundamentals -- both on the basketball court and off of it.

''I've been raised by parents who've told me you need to have a good heart and, in order for people to look up to you, you must be kind to them," Brown said.

Scott Brown proudly recounts how she keeps her baby-sitting commitments on weekends even when her friends call to go out, how she fills the gas tank before returning a car she has borrowed, and how she tries to personally answer every fan letter.

The image may be hard to square with her dancing on stage in the glitzy TV show, but Ayla Brown said she learned key lessons about perseverance and focus as the lone girl on the football team from sixth through eighth grade, playing tight end, defensive end, punter, and sometimes punt returner. Fellow players voted her team captain.

At the end of close games, the coach would yell, ''What is pain?" The players' reply: ''Our friend!" Brown laughs, thinking about how the words must have sounded in the high-pitched voice of a middle school girl.

Her love for singing began when she was a little girl. In recent years, she studied singing at the Franklin School for the Performing Arts.

Hallie Wetzell, vocal director for the school, called Brown ''a teacher's dream" and said she was someone hungry to improve.

''She isn't interested so much in what she can do right," Wetzell said. ''She's more interested in what she can improve upon. She's always looking for what you can give her to become better."

During a recent interview, Brown was polite, relaxed, and articulate, fielding questions with ease as she curled up in a rocking chair, occasionally shooing away the family dog, Snuggles, when he became a nuisance.

She acknowledged that she has had advantages growing up, but kept returning to the point that her successes haven't been handed to her, they have been a result of hard work.

The Idol shows were a great experience, she said.

''I think everything that has happened with 'American Idol' has been a success," she said. ''I've gotten my name out there, I've gotten to sing in front of 40 million people, something I had always dreamed of doing since I was a little girl. I just have loved to sing for so long."

She listened most closely to Simon Cowell, the abrasive judge on the show, feeling his comments gave her the best tips on how to improve.

Cowell was hard on her at times, telling her after she sang in one show, ''I think you are working probably harder than anyone I've seen on the show so far. I think you are the type of person who, whatever you put your mind to, you're going to end up with an 'A.' The problem I have is that sometimes you want a bit of rawness to something . . . and it's still a little bit mechanical to me."

Still, she saw him as a familiar figure: the tough coach.

''I think you can compare it to a coach criticizing you when you're playing basketball," Ayla Brown said. ''They always are going to say something either negatively or positively, but usually it's always to make you better. I feel as though Simon -- he was the one I looked to, to make myself better."

Brown said it took about a week to overcome her shock at being voted off the show March 9. She said she still hadn't watched her last performance. The family jokes about not having figured out how to operate the DVD player; Ayla admits she hasn't bothered to take the disc out of her backpack.

''Having the All-American image helped me in a lot of ways, but I think it hurt me in a lot of ways," Ayla said.

''She was never going to get any kind of sympathy vote," notes her mother.

The effects of her Idol appearance still linger. Her father said he has been spending three hours a day juggling requests for appearances and other ''Idol"-related business. Her mother worries about people who call multiple times. Fan mail pours in, including the personal note sent by Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino inviting her to sing at Fenway Park.

In a single hour after dinner recently, her parents fielded five calls for her from strangers.

She continues to appear at charity events, signing autographs and passing on advice to young girls. The act of signing an autograph gives her a thrill.

''That touches me as much as it touches them," she said. ''It means a lot to me to be able to reach out to them in a way that maybe people haven't been able to in their lives."

At college, Ayla plans to follow in her mother's footsteps by studying communications or broadcast journalism; she'll minor in music. Her time in front of the cameras has made her comfortable in the spotlight, and she enjoys the idea of turning the tables to interview athletes or entertainers as a newscaster.

She will head to BC in late June, to get a jump on classes and basketball practice.

''It's just another atmosphere where I'm playing basketball and going to school and meeting friends," she said. ''It's not something I'm nervous about. I'm really excited. . . . Nothing has changed, really, except that I've gotten more support than I've ever dreamed of."