Brittany Linzmeier has loved the Backstreet Boys since she was in first grade. Now 14, the Manitowoc girl got to meet the pop icons at a concert in Illinois last week. It was especially exciting for her becauseit was hard to see the band from her wheelchair at past concerts. Brittany has spina bifida, a birth defect that paralyzed her from the waist down.

"A friend of ours knew someone who contacted a songwriter," said Sharon Linzmeier, Brittany's mother.

Last Friday, Sharon, her husband, Dan, Brittany and her sister, Courtney, watched the Boys play baseball against pop-punk band Simple Plan in Schaumburg, Ill., then saw a sound check and attended a concert at the Charter One Pavilion in Chicago. They met all five members.

"The guys were looking right at me," Brittaney said of the sound check. "They were so sweet and nice — you wouldn't expect them to be that nice."

She got all the members' autographs on everything from t-shirts to CDs. Her favorite is Nick Carter.

"I actually met his little brother (kiddie-rap star Aaron Carter) a few years ago," Brittany said. "He got a little mad, because I asked where Nick was."

The baseball game, a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society, let fans see the musicians in an informal atmosphere.

"It was awesome," Brittany said. "Some of the guys were doing flips to make the kids laugh."

The Backstreet Boys won, embarrassing the heavier rock act, 17-3.

Brittany's long-time enthusiasm for the boy band even made her father a fan, though he grew up on the music of Boston, REO Speedwagon and Motley Crue. Through Brittany, he's picked up everything from song lyrics to knowledge of A.J. McLean's stint in drug rehab, an issue that contributed to the band's four-year break before the 2005 release "Never Gone."

"I just started listening to the songs, because she plays them all the time," Dan said. "The day the new CD came out, I had to be there."

Around 2000 or 2001, Dan and Sharon got tickets on eBay for a concert at the Allstate Arena in Chicago.

"When she found out, she went crazy, and her heart went out of rhythm," he said. "We had to take her to the hospital."

But fortunately, she was out in time to see the show. Dan put Brittany on his shoulders so she could see.

"At the time she probably weighed about 90 pounds," he said. "The next day it felt like someone beat … me, from her jumping and screaming."