STARKVILLE, Miss. – After just about every home game, he goes home to his horses. His teammates go back to the dorms, or the parties, or out on the town, but Johnthan Banks gets in his car and drives straight into the dark Mississippi night, two dozen miles to the only home he's ever known. He is bruised from the game – a little bit physically and a little bit spiritually – but it's nothing church and the horses can't help mend. He knows they are waiting.

They have been waiting all his life, long before the Jets and Giants scouts sat next to each other in the Mississippi State press box to watch him play. They were waiting before he was an almost-millionaire, before he was one of the best football players in the nation, before he shepherded his Bulldogs teammates to a 6-0 record and the precipice of a national title conversation.

They were there when the electricity went out, when the water went out. They were there on the days without his dad, without his mom. They've

The darkest year in the history of Penn State University has served to bring the campus together like never before. And now it’s united for another tragic reason: a life-threatening injury to one of its students.

On Saturday night, sophomore cheerleader Paige Raque fell 39 feet out of a fifth-story window in the apartment building where she lives. She is now in critical condition at a local hospital. There is no short-term or long-term prognosis yet.

“This morning she did show some signs of movement,” Randy Jepson told Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday. Jepson, who is acting as the Raque family spokesman, coaches Paige’s older brother, Parker, on the Penn State gymnastics team. He is also the father of Paige’s freshman year roommate.

“She did open her eyes a bit,” Jepson said. “It is a very slow recovery process.”

Raque, 19, is from Louisville, where she attended the Christian Academy. A phone call to the school was forwarded to the marketing department and not returned.

“She’s

The New York Giants are the best team in – Whoa! Did you see that RGIII touchdown run?

The New York Giants are the best team in – The Pats lost? Tom Brady must be bent!

The New York Giants are the best team in – Romo fail!

Our football attention span is too short and our desire for big headlines is too strong to appreciate the budding dynasty in our midst. The Giants are only 4-2, but they are still the best team in football. And Sunday, in what was supposed to be a "revenge" game for the 49ers, the hit men from Jersey traveled west and proved again they deserve far more buzz than they get.

The 26-3 drubbing was vintage Giants: efficient, decimating and borderline boring. That's the problem. We're all so set on controversy and debate that the Giants don't move the needle even when they move mountains. What's to debate? Eli Manning is outstanding. The running game is overpowering. The receivers are reliable. The pass rush is fierce. The allegedly weak secondary picked

Tigers head coach Les Miles celebrates with his team after beating the Gamecocks. (Reuters)

BATON ROUGE, La. – Nobody expected him to stand up and say anything Friday night. He was just the kicker. He wasn't even the field-goal kicker. Just the kickoff guy.

But by the time James Hairston was done speaking, done baring his soul, done talking about the loss of his mother when he was 13 and the effect this team has had on his life, there were tears coming down the faces of much bigger men.

And the Tigers were ready to be national championship contenders again.

"This is a family," said linebacker Lamin Barrow, who admitted he cried listening to Hairston speak. "If there was any doubt this is a family, it was over after that."

Yes, there were other motivating factors in LSU's come-from-behind 23-21 win Saturday. There was the bitterness of losing at Florida and falling apart down the stretch a week before. It was the embarrassment of seeming like a shadow of last year's national runner-up team. And it was the sound of some of the South Carolina players yapping

Blair Holliday (8) stepped on a football field for the first time after his accident on Sept. 15. Anthony Boone came back from a summer weekend to a surprise team meeting. The Duke quarterback got word of the gathering while he was at his locker and immediately noticed teammate Blair Holliday wasn't around. Worried about Holliday's whereabouts, Boone texted him. He called. He left messages. "You need to wake up!" he blared into the phone. Great, Boone thought, Blair's gonna get in trouble.

The team came together and head coach David Cutcliffe made an announcement: Blair had been in an accident. He'd suffered serious head trauma. We don't know much more right now.

The Blue Devils were silent.

"A lot of guys just went home," Boone remembers.

Holliday had been in a Fourth of July weekend jet ski accident. He collided with teammate Jamison Crowder, and when he did was struck in the head by the bottom of Crowder's jet ski. He lost consciousness and stopped breathing, floating face-down in the water. His life was saved only by the quick thinking of Chelsea Gibbons, a nursing

A little bit of perspective is in order as opening night of the NHL season, originally set for Thursday, will feature darkened arenas across North America. That perspective comes from one of pro hockey's most popular players; a man who nearly called it quits over the summer because of something every parent fears.

Shane Doan signed a four-year deal to remain with the Phoenix Coyotes. (Getty Images)On July 6, Doan was with his wife in Edmonton to watch his son's hockey tournament when he got a call. The couple's 7-year-old daughter, Karys, had been bitten in the face by a dog on her grandparents' farm. She would need surgery. Shane and his wife, Andrea, got in the car and drove across Alberta in terror.

"I would never in a million years want any dad to have to go through that," Doan told Sarah McLellan of the Arizona Daily Republic.

Karys required bone reconstruction and 150 stitches to her face. She was in the hospital for six days.

According to McLellan's report, Doan thought of retiring.

"This changed everything for me," he said.

So while the rest

But it shouldn't. Not when it's cruel. Not when it's inhumane.

Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel was knocked to the ground for several minutes in the fourth quarter of his team's home loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, and the Kansas City fans cheered. Not just a few, either. Hundreds and possibly thousands were clearly thrilled Cassel was rendered incapable of playing.

It was enough to move Chiefs offensive lineman Eric Winston to call an impromptu news conference in the locker room and send a clear message to those who were happy about his teammate's head injury.

Trainers assist Matt Cassel during the second half of Sunday's game. (AP) "When you cheer," Winston said, "when you cheer somebody getting knocked out, I don't care who it is, and it just so happened to be Matt Cassel – it's sickening. It's 100 percent sickening. I've been in some rough times on some rough teams, I've never been more embarrassed in my life to play football than in that

In three games, Oregon State's Markus Wheaton has 27 catches and three touchdowns. (Getty Images)It was the most monumental play in the history of Oregon football, and one of the most transformational in college football history. Late in the 1994 season, the Washington Huskies marched into the red zone in the fourth quarter for what looked like another game-winning touchdown in what had been a very one-sided rivalry with the Ducks.

Huskies quarterback Damon Huard fired a pass to his left only to watch as a redshirt freshman named Kenny Wheaton burst in front of the throw and picked it off at the 3-yard line.

As Wheaton flew down the sideline with the ball, cutting inside to avoid a would-be tackler, Autzen Stadium erupted in almost shocked disbelief.

"Kenny Wheaton's gonna score!" screamed Ducks broadcaster Jerry Allen. "Kenny Wheaton's gonna score!"

To this day, "The Pick" is replayed on the big screen before every Ducks home game. Wheaton is in the school's Hall of Fame. And Oregon, a mostly-mediocre program which had only seven winning seasons since 1967, has had