UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- A leader. A fighter. An ambassador. All describe former Penn State Football student-athlete Adam Taliaferro, who has more than overcome tremendous odds to thrive after sustaining a career-ending spinal cord injury 16 years ago.
His courageous story doesn't simply involve a devastating injury and a miraculous recovery. Rather, where Taliaferro's story lives on, is within the lives of those he has been able to change in the years following his own life altering experience.
Flash back to Sept. 1, 2001, when Taliaferro, who just 11 months prior had faced the unthinkable, led the Penn State team on to the field at Beaver Stadium in front of a record crowd of 109,313 joyous and emotional fans for the season opener against Miami (Fla.).
A moment that Taliaferro still finds hard to put into words and one his father, Andre, describes, as a moment where Adam's life had started anew.
The Injury
The week of Sept. 23, 2000, was similar to any other game week for the true freshman cornerback from Voorhees, New Jersey, as the Nittany Lions prepared to open their Big Ten Conference slate at Ohio State in a nationally televised contest on ABC.
Filled with excitement, Taliaferro was poised to play in one of the biggest games of his rookie career, playing in front of a packed crowd at Ohio Stadium.
"Any opportunity that I got to play was exciting, because for me, coming from South Jersey and playing in front of five or six thousand people and then playing in a place like Beaver Stadium or at The Horseshoe out in Columbus, I just remember a lot of excitement and enthusiasm," Taliaferro said.
On a routine play near the end of the matchup against the Buckeyes, Taliaferro recalls tilting his head down as he lunged toward Ohio State's Jerry Westbrooks to make a tackle he had made nearly 100 times in the past. He suffered a serious neck injury.
"I can remember the play, I can remember the position of him lying on the field and I can remember turning to the trainer, George Salvaterra, and saying, 'this is not a good situation,'" recalls Penn State's Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, who was among the first to run out on to the field after the impact of Taliaferro's tackle left him motionless on the field.
Unable to move his arm, Taliaferro's first thought was a broken arm. Unable to gather his legs to get up, his next thought was stinger, a nerve injury in the neck and shoulder area.
"I had heard from other guys that when you get stinger you lose sensation for a little bit and then it eventually comes back."
As team physicians and trainers asked Taliaferro a series of questions, he felt no pain as he correctly answered his name and location, while medical professionals worked swiftly to provide care that would give him the best chances for recovery.
"I just kind of laid there and they told me not to move and they took me off the field but the thought of being paralyzed never really went through my head while I was unable to move on the ground," Taliaferro said.
In the critical moments after sustaining his injury, Taliaferro was carefully transported to the Ohio State University Medical Center.
"I knew my mom (Addie) would be pretty upset and I knew my family was watching on TV, so I wanted to give a thumbs up," Taliaferro said. "As they were rolling me off the field and I could not move my hands and I remember thinking this could be kind of serious."
That's where it gets foggy for Taliaferro, though, as he remembers an x-ray before waking up and seeing the face of his father.
"I remember him saying to me, 'you've been injured but you're going to be ok,'" Taliaferro said.
The Recovery
After surgery the following Monday, Taliaferro knew from his family that his his injury was serious, but his family kept the initial prognosis from him -- a prognosis that included a less than five percent chance that Taliaferro would ever walk again.
"We wanted to give him every opportunity to get better," Andre said. "We didn't want him to have to deal with anything negative or anything that would suggest that he wouldn't get better."
"Since I didn't know any better, I just always went into it like I was going to walk out of it," Adam said.
Focused solely on a full recovery, Adam Taliaferro believed with all his heart from the very first day of his injury, that he was going to get better.
Four days after his injury, Adam was transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, less than 20 miles from his home. Several days later, he was moved to Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia to begin his arduous rehabilitation.
Little by little, Taliaferro had to re-learn everything movement-related, with his largest task in regaining the ability to walk on his own again.
"We would do six hours of therapy a day," Adam said. "My physical therapist became like my football coach and I just tried to go into every therapy session like I would go into football practice, where I had to just get a little bit better every day."
Along with the constant support from his family, Taliaferro also drew inspiration from his coaches, teammates and Penn State tootball family and administration, who were regular visitors throughout his rehabilitation in Philadelphia and later, at home.
"They would come down every Thursday after practice and they would bring two or three players and I would see different guys," Taliaferro said. "It was exciting for me because as I was getting better, I would try every Thursday to show them that I was doing something new or that I was moving something new."
Spending weeks learning to move a single finger, Taliaferro celebrated every milestone along the way until major breakthrough presented a turning point.
Late one evening nearly two months into his rehabilitation, Taliaferro's nurse caught his toe moving and prompted him to attempt to move the toe again. Taliaferro successfully moved his toe on the next try, signaling hope.
Such a breakthrough called for a celebration, as Taliaferro's parents immediately returned to the hospital filled with joy, calling as many people as they could to share the promising news.
"We knew that from a medical perspective, once you wiggle a toe, you have about an 85 percent chance of walking so we were very encouraged at that point in time and literally within weeks he was on his feet," Sebastianelli said.
The Rebirth
Having made significant progress in his recovery, Taliaferro incredibly walked out of Magee Rehabilitation Hospital on crutches on Jan. 6, 2001, and went home, where he continued his rehabilitation. He returned to State College for the 2001 fall semester, where he would continue to rehab with Nittany Lion athletic trainers and team physicians, who made him like his regular self again.
"Tom Bradley, who was our defensive coordinator and my position coach, made me a student assistant coach," Taliaferro said. "I was still at all the practices and all the meetings and I was concerned because I was no longer a football player, but the coaches, the staff and my teammates still made me feel like I was an integral part of the team."
On Sept. 1, 2001, surrounded by not just those who had directly supported Taliaferro along the way, but the entire Penn State community, he walked, then skipped and jogged in leading the Nittany Lions through the Beaver Stadium gates and on to the field.
"It felt as though a mission had been completed," Andre Taliaferro said. "We knew that he wasn't going to play anymore, but the fact that he had recovered from an accident on the field and was told that he would never walk again, here he was and now he was going to start life anew."
By 2005, Taliaferro was crossing the stage on graduation day, having earned his undergraduate degree in labor and industrial relations. By 2008, he had earned his law degree from the Rutgers School of Law-Camden and was off to a successful career with Bristol-Myers Squibb. In November 2015, he was elected to his first full two-year term as member of the New Jersey General Assembly after being appointed to the seat in 10 months earlier. Taliaferro and his wife, formerly Erin Mulshenock, a Penn State swimmer, also welcomed a new addition to their family with the birth of their son last year.
Sparked by the tremendous amount of financial support his family had received due to the severity of his injury and his rehabilitation, the Adam Taliaferro Foundation was also born in 2001.
The process of recovering from a severe spinal cord injury is a lifelong journey. One that Taliaferro not only embraces on a personal level daily, but one that he continues to support through his dedication to the Adam Taliaferro Foundation.
"Penn State and Penn Staters had raised a lot of money for me and my hometown had raised a lot of money for me and my lifetime care, but thankfully, I didn't need any of those funds so we came up with the idea that if I don't need it, there are plenty of people out there who do," Taliaferro said.
With the mission to help athletes who have suffered devastating spinal cord injuries, the Foundation provides emotional, financial and educational support to student-athletes who sustain spinal cord injuries in sanctioned team events throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Operating entirely through volunteer support, Taliaferro has been able to give back to those who gave so much to him along the way.
Among countless individuals he has been able to impact, Taliaferro recounts being especially proud to help a high school senior secure the financial support for a full-time nurse so she could attend college and fulfill her dream to earn a degree, just like Taliaferro.
"It's little things like that that where we just had a small piece in it, but here's a young lady who was able to get back to living her life and get an education although she was paralyzed because we were able to provide a full-time nurse for her while she was away at college."
Back to living life is exactly where Taliaferro found himself and where he will continue to have an impact on those who embark on the same journey as he did.