01:00 AM EST on Friday, February 17, 2006

BY ANDY SMITH
Journal Television Writer

Ayla Brown loves to sing. Ayla Brown loves to play basketball.

Pretty soon, she might be faced with a tough decision about which to do first.

Brown, a 17-year-old from Wrentham, Mass., is one of the 24 finalists on Fox TV's hugely popular talent competition American Idol.

A senior at the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Mass., she is a four-time All New England Prep School selection who planned to attend Boston College on a full athletic scholarship in the fall.

"I have always dreamed of singing and playing basketball," Brown said in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where American Idol is made. "The order I always pictured was basketball first and singing second."

Then she discovered that American Idol was having auditions at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, just a five-minute drive from her home. She said she talked it over with her parents, who told her to give it a try, if only for the experience.

And now she's in Hollywood, about to move into the next round of the most popular TV show in America.

So what happens to her basketball plans if someone offers her a record deal?

"Right now I'm just taking it day by day," Brown said. "When the time comes, I will sit down with my family and discuss very seriously what I'm going to do next. If I come in one, two or three [on American Idol], then I guess the future will take care of itself. If I come in further down, I'll probably go to BC and play basketball."

Ultimately, she said, she doesn't see why she can't star in both music and sports.

"I want to be able to do everything. I want to be the person who can do both," she said.

Brown said she's a fan of soul and R&B, naming Destiny's Child and Alicia Keys as favorite musicians. She said she took voice lessons at the Franklin School for the Performing Arts in Franklin, Mass., and spoke to her vocal teacher, Hallie Wetzell, before the first American Idol audition at Gillette.

Brown said her athletic career has helped her with some aspects of American Idol, such as dealing with pressure and having the ability to take criticism -- and Brown said she's always been a competitor.

Brown said she didn't appreciate it when Simon Cowell, Idol's famously acerbic judge, called her singing "robotic" during an early audition.

Right now, she said, the 24 American Idol contestants are living in a Los Angeles hotel. Because Brown is a minor, she needs to be accompanied by a parent, so either her mom or dad is always there.

(Her father is Massachusetts state Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, and her mother, Gail Huff, is a reporter for Boston's WCVB-TV.)

Brown said she has already fulfilled the graduation requirements for Noble and Greenough, so schoolwork is not a problem.

If there's one thing Brown resents, it's the assumption that, thanks to her athletic success and her prominent parents, everything comes easily to her.

That attitude has occasionally been reinforced by comments from the American Idol judges.

"I'd like to pretend to make it difficult for you, but nothing seems difficult for you," Paula Abdul told Brown on the air Wednesday night.

"There's a strong misconception about the kind of person I really am," Brown said. "People only see the person on TV . . . As a family, we have worked incredibly hard to get to where we are. I've worked incredibly hard to be a basketball player.

"There might be a perception that I don't really need this, so I'm not a typical American Idol story. But it's about the singing, not where you're brought up, and I hope people will see that I'm a good person and that I worked hard to get to where I am."

Now that the three American Idol judges have narrowed the field down to 24 -- 12 males and 12 females -- the public finally gets a chance to weigh in, voting on their favorites by phone or text message.

On Tuesday at 8 p.m., the males will sing. On Wednesday, the females get their turn. Thursday, the two male singers and two female singers with the fewest votes will go home.

That schedule will continue through March 9, when the show gets down to its final 12. After that, the would-be pop stars are eliminated one at a time until just one -- the American Idol -- is left.

Is Ayla nervous?

"I'm more nervous about how people will see me," she said. "I really want America's support."