Player: Adam Taliaferro
Team: Penn State
Position: Cornerback
Jersey #: 43

Personal notes:
In 2000, Adam joined the Penn State Football team as one of the top-rated freshman of their 2000 recruiting class. He earned playing time as a true freshman for Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions, despite Paterno's well-documented policy of redshirting freshman players.

On September 23, 2000, while playing in only the fifth game of his college career, Adam sustained a career-ending spinal cord injury while tackling Ohio State’s tailback Jerry Westbrooks. Taliaferro's helmet had hit Westbrooks' thigh during the tackle, bursting the fifth cervical vertebra in his neck and bruising his spinal cord. Adam was paralyzed from the neck down on the hit. He had surgery to fuse his C-5 vertebrate After surgery, three different doctors told Adam's parents their son would probably never walk again. Three months later, the miracle was completed. Adam walked out of Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia.

Taliaferro returned to Penn State less than a year after his injury and led the Nittany Lions onto Beaver Stadium’s field for the first game of the 2001 season in front of a record crowd of 105,000 fans. Taliaferro skipped, then jogged onto the field in front of an emotional Penn State crowd.

In 2001, a book was written by Sam Carchidi to chronicle Taliaferro's life and recovery, entitled Miracle in the Making.

Taliaferro created his own foundation to help support others with spinal cord injuries.

Adam is now an attorney at Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP and also a motivational speaker.

Awards:
2009 Philadelphia Sports Writers Humanitarian Award