ADAM TALIAFERRO
The Pennsylvania State University
Special Presentation
Spirit Award

    On September 23, 2000, Penn State freshman Adam Taliaferro suffered a severe neck injury while making a tackle in a game against Ohio State. He fractured the fifth cervical vertebra near the base of his neck and two days later, he underwent spinal fusion surgery.

    Medical experts feared the 19-year-old Taliaferro might never walk again, but just last month, he left the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital on his own two feet with only crutches to support him. And the crutches, he vowed, would soon be put aside as well.

    Taliaferro's inspiring recovery has earned him the Maxwell Football Club's first Spirit Award. Certainly, the sight of the former Eastern (N.J.) High School star leaving the hospital and returning home was cause for celebration. It ranks among the great comeback stories of this or any other season.

    Wrote Dick Jerardi in the Philadelphia Daily News: "Given the nature of his injury, (his recovery) is very close to a miracle. Immediately after the injury, there was great concern that the feeling Adam had lost (in his arms and legs) might never return and he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. That is the outcome in many of these cases. This was a special case, a special person."

    "We are indeed the recipients of divine intervention," Andre Taliaferro, Adam's father, told Jerardi.

    Adam helped his own recovery, pushing his body through three or four grueling therapy sessions a day, beginning early in the morning and continuing through the afternoon.

    "He is doing at least as much work here as he was when he was training for his football career," said Dr. William Staas, McGee's president and medical director. "He jumped rapidly from not walking to walking, much faster than we anticipated."

    Taliaferro was a star athlete at Eastern, where he set school records with 3,227 rushing yards and 62 touchdowns. He was named 1999 South Jersey Player of the year by the Courier Post and Philadelphia Inquirer. He was requited by dozens of major colleges, but he accepted a full scholarship to Penn State.

    One frightening collision in Columbus, Ohio turned Adam Taliaferro's life upside-down. But within four months, he had fought his way back. He intends to return to school this summer and resume working toward his degree.

    "It was unfortunate I had to get hurt" Taliaferro told Bill Shralow of the Courier-Post, "but I look around (the rehabilitation center) and realize I could have been a whole lot worse off than I am right now. I can't be mad about anything because I've got a second chance."

                                 
                       Adam and Don Shula                                         Adam accepts the Spirit Award from 
                                                                                           Ron Jaworski, president of the Maxwell Club

Adam, Carl Peterson and Tom Brookshier

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