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AP Photo/Lance MurpheyCentral Florida's A.J. Rompza o averages nine points, 4.5 assists and 2.6 rebounds and is one of the nation's biggest defensive pests.

Like every kid tagging along with his older brother to the YMCA for the first time, A.J. Rompza dealt with the harsh reality at 9 years old that no one was going to pick him to play on their basketball team.

Rompza couldn't understand why. He believed he was just as good as the older kids on the floor. Afterward, Rompza sulked as he and his brother walked home. His brother felt awful and broke the truth to him -- Rompza was just too small to play with the big boys.

"Too small?" Rompza answered back. "What does that have to do with anything?"

That was 10 years ago, but today is no different. Rompza doesn't stand much taller now than he did as a fourth-grader -- he's generously listed at 5 foot 9 -- and he still has to deal with people questioning whether he can play basketball at his height.

But just as he did as a confident and naive 9-year-old, Rompza, now a sophomore guard at Central Florida, still asks his skeptics, "What does that have to do with anything?"

Rompza was pondering that general question a year ago when he decided to write his own definitive answer to it.

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