tibor75
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Taliaferro walks away from PSU feeling fortunate
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
By Chico Harlan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- His grin is eternal, immune to circumstance. That is the first thing people notice. Today, Adam Taliaferro has reason to break his smile, and still he doesn't. The things he talks about -- the end of college at Penn State; the end of his association with the football team; the end of many things he has grown to love -- are the very topics that should, with most people, encourage melancholy.
It catches you off guard, how he smiles even when he tells you he's sad.
"It's amazing," he says, sitting on a couch in his on-campus apartment. "It's still amazing to me that I only played in five football games for Penn State, but it feels like I've never stopped playing. Just the way everybody embraced me -- Joe Paterno, the guys on the team. To this day, in the Penn State community, people still remember me. And I'm like, 'Hey, I didn't do anything except get injured!' But this place will always have a special place in my heart."
It's the afternoon, atypically warm. Music videos, volume turned low, play in the background. Taliaferro wears a gray Penn State football shirt and navy Penn State sweats, the kind issued to players, though he last played football Sept. 23, 2000. On that day, Taliaferro was a freshman. The four years that separated him from graduation didn't prevent coaches from suggesting that their newest cornerback had NFL potential. First-round potential. The kind of potential that can become an affliction if something prevents it from flowering.
Now, Taliaferro says, he's getting old. That's another of those phrases he delivers with an incongruent laugh. He points to four 18-inch tires -- adorned with sparkling chrome rims, the kind that spin without pause, even when the body of the car stops moving. The tires lean on an angle against a living room wall. A year ago, Taliaferro bought them for $2,500. Now, on eBay, he's selling them -- because of his age, he jokes, and because his next step in life will take him to a place where cardigan is cool. He's 23. In one month, after graduation from Penn State, he'll begin law school at Rutgers.
Law textbooks clutter Taliaferro's coffee table, remnants from the months he spent studying for the LSATs. "I can let them collect dust for a little," he quips.
Taliaferro, now and for the future, is the product of the unexpected. After his career-ending neck injury -- which left him temporarily paralyzed -- doctors told Taliaferro's parents that his life was in danger. That, in retrospect, turned into a starting point. A starting point for recovery and inspiration and small-scale fame. A starting point for Taliaferro's education, and a starting point for the education of others.
Only weeks from leaving Penn State with a pre-law degree, Taliaferro already has had internships with a Philadelphia-area law firm, the NFL Players Association and an NFL agent, Jerrold Colton. That's what Taliaferro wants to become -- an agent.
"Adam's involvement with the NFL might not be what he once expected," Colton says. "But you know what? My guess is that he'll be more successful than he ever dreamed."
Counting on a miracle
Everybody asks him what it felt like, the sensation of being sensationless. What does he remember?
Well, for one, Taliaferro remembers everything that happened beforehand. He remembers a dismal afternoon -- a 45-6 Penn State loss. He remembers the waning moments of the game -- how Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley ordered him into the game at cornerback, and then, how his adrenaline suddenly buzzed.
He remembers the hit, a helmet-first collision with Ohio State running back Brian Westbrooks. He remembers wilting to the ground, and instinctively trying to hop back up, because that's what he had done every time before. And then he remembers panic, first in the core of his heart -- his body was numb ... totally numb ... frozen dead -- and then in the faces of everybody around him, everywhere in Ohio Stadium. Teammate Bhawoh Jue stood above him and begged him to get up. Players knelt on the sidelines and prayed. Team doctors rushed toward him and initiated the frantic, fantastic process of saving an 18-year-old's life.
He remembers that much, and nothing more. He had shattered the fifth cervical vertebra in his neck. He had bruised his spinal cord. Doctors later told Andre and Addie Taliaferro that their son had a 3 percent chance of walking again. Taliaferro's life became a blur of sleep and morphine haze. He spent 10 days in the Ohio State University Medical Center, where doctors performed spinal fusion surgery.
Taliaferro was transferred to the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia -- close to his family's home in Voorhees, N.J. His parents made the hospital their second home. Penn State coaches and administrators visited. So did high school friends.
"His body had deteriorated so quickly," best friend Justin Barton recalls. "It was devastating to see him. And yet, still, it seemed like he was more concerned with how everybody else was holding up."
That's partly because Taliaferro's parents intercepted every saddened sympathy, every suggestion that their son wouldn't be OK. They made sure he never heard the doctors' grave prognosis. Even when Taliaferro was clamped to a hospital bed, unable to move, he figured his recovery was just a matter of time. Everybody else waited on a miracle. Taliaferro, again, was the only person smiling.
"I remember waking up there one day and blinking my eyes," Taliaferro says. "My mom, my dad, they were like, 'Try to move something.' Hours on end, every day. I remember trying to move my big toe, and I'd been trying to gain movement so many times, I didn't even realize I was finally doing it. From that point on, everything else started coming back."
Slowly. With setbacks. With hours of rehab and therapy. With encouragement. Three months after his injury, Taliaferro had already gained back more movement than most doctors had dreamed. And that's how he left the hospital Jan. 5, 2001 -- walking with the help of crutches, intent on fully recovering, returning to school and once again doing all the normal things that suddenly seemed miraculous.
The real world
"It was tough at first," Taliaferro says. "I drove myself crazy, even though, really, I should have been thankful just to be walking. All my life, it was just football, football, football. After I got hurt, I had no idea what I wanted to do. All through middle school, I always did OK in school, but I always did it just so I could play football.
"And then, at Penn State, you see all these guys ahead of you -- Larry Johnson, Jimmy Kennedy -- advance to the pros, and you think it's almost automatic. College, then the NFL. It's so close to you. You see those guys coming back to campus with nice cars, and it's easy to get entangled in all that. You almost forget that only a small percentage of athletes do go to the next level.
"That's why I'm thankful [my injury] happened so early. I had a chance to focus on what I wanted, getting into law school. If I'd gotten hurt as a senior, it would have been so much more devastating. Because as a college athlete, you don't think about the real world until it hits you. The real world hit me about five years early."
To this day, Taliaferro has limitations. He remains unable to run. He sometimes struggles with balance, and he's more susceptible to extreme temperatures. Because of nerve damage, his hands naturally curl into a C-shape.
For every football season since his injury, though, Taliaferro remained a de facto member of the team. Every week, coaches asked him to study film of opposing wide receivers. Then he would draft a report and distribute it to the Penn State defensive backs. Other times, when Taliaferro worked out in the Lasch Football Building gym -- something he still does every weekday -- Penn State strength coaches pushed him so hard, Taliaferro swore they wanted him to play the upcoming Saturday.
Taliaferro developed into everything he never expected. When Doug Allen, an executive in the NFL Players Association, came to campus to conduct a seminar, Taliaferro attended, then waited for the crowd to file out before introducing himself.
"Mr. Allen," Taliaferro said, "I'm Adam."
Allen already knew.
That led to a summer in Washington, D.C., where Taliaferro interned with the NFLPA. He did that for half of the summer, spending the other half with Colton -- "Crazy job," Taliaferro says of being a sports agent. "He was on the phone, like, 25 hours per day, making dentist appointments for his players."
On May 31, Taliaferro begins law school at Rutgers. Joe Paterno wrote his letter of recommendation. Aside from his daily workouts, Taliaferro has backed away from the football team this semester. He'll attend the Blue-White game Saturday, but after that, his duties officially end.
"I'm just trying to savor these last few weeks," Taliaferro says. "I know there will be no time like this in my life again. There's not much more I could have done here.
"I graduate, and then I'll walk out of here on my own two feet."
Taliaferro walks away from PSU feeling fortunate
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
By Chico Harlan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- His grin is eternal, immune to circumstance. That is the first thing people notice. Today, Adam Taliaferro has reason to break his smile, and still he doesn't. The things he talks about -- the end of college at Penn State; the end of his association with the football team; the end of many things he has grown to love -- are the very topics that should, with most people, encourage melancholy.
It catches you off guard, how he smiles even when he tells you he's sad.
"It's amazing," he says, sitting on a couch in his on-campus apartment. "It's still amazing to me that I only played in five football games for Penn State, but it feels like I've never stopped playing. Just the way everybody embraced me -- Joe Paterno, the guys on the team. To this day, in the Penn State community, people still remember me. And I'm like, 'Hey, I didn't do anything except get injured!' But this place will always have a special place in my heart."
It's the afternoon, atypically warm. Music videos, volume turned low, play in the background. Taliaferro wears a gray Penn State football shirt and navy Penn State sweats, the kind issued to players, though he last played football Sept. 23, 2000. On that day, Taliaferro was a freshman. The four years that separated him from graduation didn't prevent coaches from suggesting that their newest cornerback had NFL potential. First-round potential. The kind of potential that can become an affliction if something prevents it from flowering.
Now, Taliaferro says, he's getting old. That's another of those phrases he delivers with an incongruent laugh. He points to four 18-inch tires -- adorned with sparkling chrome rims, the kind that spin without pause, even when the body of the car stops moving. The tires lean on an angle against a living room wall. A year ago, Taliaferro bought them for $2,500. Now, on eBay, he's selling them -- because of his age, he jokes, and because his next step in life will take him to a place where cardigan is cool. He's 23. In one month, after graduation from Penn State, he'll begin law school at Rutgers.
Law textbooks clutter Taliaferro's coffee table, remnants from the months he spent studying for the LSATs. "I can let them collect dust for a little," he quips.
Taliaferro, now and for the future, is the product of the unexpected. After his career-ending neck injury -- which left him temporarily paralyzed -- doctors told Taliaferro's parents that his life was in danger. That, in retrospect, turned into a starting point. A starting point for recovery and inspiration and small-scale fame. A starting point for Taliaferro's education, and a starting point for the education of others.
Only weeks from leaving Penn State with a pre-law degree, Taliaferro already has had internships with a Philadelphia-area law firm, the NFL Players Association and an NFL agent, Jerrold Colton. That's what Taliaferro wants to become -- an agent.
"Adam's involvement with the NFL might not be what he once expected," Colton says. "But you know what? My guess is that he'll be more successful than he ever dreamed."
Counting on a miracle
Everybody asks him what it felt like, the sensation of being sensationless. What does he remember?
Well, for one, Taliaferro remembers everything that happened beforehand. He remembers a dismal afternoon -- a 45-6 Penn State loss. He remembers the waning moments of the game -- how Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Bradley ordered him into the game at cornerback, and then, how his adrenaline suddenly buzzed.
He remembers the hit, a helmet-first collision with Ohio State running back Brian Westbrooks. He remembers wilting to the ground, and instinctively trying to hop back up, because that's what he had done every time before. And then he remembers panic, first in the core of his heart -- his body was numb ... totally numb ... frozen dead -- and then in the faces of everybody around him, everywhere in Ohio Stadium. Teammate Bhawoh Jue stood above him and begged him to get up. Players knelt on the sidelines and prayed. Team doctors rushed toward him and initiated the frantic, fantastic process of saving an 18-year-old's life.
He remembers that much, and nothing more. He had shattered the fifth cervical vertebra in his neck. He had bruised his spinal cord. Doctors later told Andre and Addie Taliaferro that their son had a 3 percent chance of walking again. Taliaferro's life became a blur of sleep and morphine haze. He spent 10 days in the Ohio State University Medical Center, where doctors performed spinal fusion surgery.
Taliaferro was transferred to the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia -- close to his family's home in Voorhees, N.J. His parents made the hospital their second home. Penn State coaches and administrators visited. So did high school friends.
"His body had deteriorated so quickly," best friend Justin Barton recalls. "It was devastating to see him. And yet, still, it seemed like he was more concerned with how everybody else was holding up."
That's partly because Taliaferro's parents intercepted every saddened sympathy, every suggestion that their son wouldn't be OK. They made sure he never heard the doctors' grave prognosis. Even when Taliaferro was clamped to a hospital bed, unable to move, he figured his recovery was just a matter of time. Everybody else waited on a miracle. Taliaferro, again, was the only person smiling.
"I remember waking up there one day and blinking my eyes," Taliaferro says. "My mom, my dad, they were like, 'Try to move something.' Hours on end, every day. I remember trying to move my big toe, and I'd been trying to gain movement so many times, I didn't even realize I was finally doing it. From that point on, everything else started coming back."
Slowly. With setbacks. With hours of rehab and therapy. With encouragement. Three months after his injury, Taliaferro had already gained back more movement than most doctors had dreamed. And that's how he left the hospital Jan. 5, 2001 -- walking with the help of crutches, intent on fully recovering, returning to school and once again doing all the normal things that suddenly seemed miraculous.
The real world
"It was tough at first," Taliaferro says. "I drove myself crazy, even though, really, I should have been thankful just to be walking. All my life, it was just football, football, football. After I got hurt, I had no idea what I wanted to do. All through middle school, I always did OK in school, but I always did it just so I could play football.
"And then, at Penn State, you see all these guys ahead of you -- Larry Johnson, Jimmy Kennedy -- advance to the pros, and you think it's almost automatic. College, then the NFL. It's so close to you. You see those guys coming back to campus with nice cars, and it's easy to get entangled in all that. You almost forget that only a small percentage of athletes do go to the next level.
"That's why I'm thankful [my injury] happened so early. I had a chance to focus on what I wanted, getting into law school. If I'd gotten hurt as a senior, it would have been so much more devastating. Because as a college athlete, you don't think about the real world until it hits you. The real world hit me about five years early."
To this day, Taliaferro has limitations. He remains unable to run. He sometimes struggles with balance, and he's more susceptible to extreme temperatures. Because of nerve damage, his hands naturally curl into a C-shape.
For every football season since his injury, though, Taliaferro remained a de facto member of the team. Every week, coaches asked him to study film of opposing wide receivers. Then he would draft a report and distribute it to the Penn State defensive backs. Other times, when Taliaferro worked out in the Lasch Football Building gym -- something he still does every weekday -- Penn State strength coaches pushed him so hard, Taliaferro swore they wanted him to play the upcoming Saturday.
Taliaferro developed into everything he never expected. When Doug Allen, an executive in the NFL Players Association, came to campus to conduct a seminar, Taliaferro attended, then waited for the crowd to file out before introducing himself.
"Mr. Allen," Taliaferro said, "I'm Adam."
Allen already knew.
That led to a summer in Washington, D.C., where Taliaferro interned with the NFLPA. He did that for half of the summer, spending the other half with Colton -- "Crazy job," Taliaferro says of being a sports agent. "He was on the phone, like, 25 hours per day, making dentist appointments for his players."
On May 31, Taliaferro begins law school at Rutgers. Joe Paterno wrote his letter of recommendation. Aside from his daily workouts, Taliaferro has backed away from the football team this semester. He'll attend the Blue-White game Saturday, but after that, his duties officially end.
"I'm just trying to savor these last few weeks," Taliaferro says. "I know there will be no time like this in my life again. There's not much more I could have done here.
"I graduate, and then I'll walk out of here on my own two feet."
