Adam Taliaferro and Jonathan Ham do not know each other, but they are forever linked.

They are, in some respects, as different as can be. Taliaferro is a Penn State football player. Ham is a gymnast for the University of Illinois. Taliaferro hails from New Jersey. Ham calls the other side of the country — California — home.

But they share something few people can even come close to understanding. They are athletes who have had their lives changed forever, all for the love of the game. They know what it is like to hear a doctor say, "He may never walk again."

It was Nov. 16, 1995, and Jon Ham was going through his regular practice session at a gym outside of Los Angeles. He was on the high bar, one of his better events. He had just turned 16 and had received his driver's license.

Then, on one release, he missed the bar and fell to the mat headfirst.

Witnesses said he tried to get up, tried to keep going. Ham doesn't remember.

"I heard a loud crunch," he said. "I knew I was in trouble."

Ham still had limited movement, but his extremities were numb. His parents, Dwight and Kathy, arrived as ambulance workers were restraining his head and neck by padding them in place on the stretcher.

They didn't know what to think or what to say.

All Jon said was, "Mom, I've got this big test tomorrow, so make sure to bring my books to the hospital."

He spent six hours strapped to the board while doctors examined him. Different parts of his body would tingle, start going numb. Due to the nature of the human body, Ham was still in the danger zone. Any wrong movement, by him or the doctors, would have resulted in permanent damage.

Ham had broken a vertebrae in his neck and dislocated several others. There was, incredibly, no damage to his spine.

"The doctor said I had dodged a bullet," Ham said. "Actually, he said to call it a miracle was an understatement."

Ham spent the next two weeks in traction, 30 pounds pulling on his head. Doctors hoped the pressure would naturally straighten out his neck.

While in the hospital, Ham received visitors, sometimes up to 40 at a time. His brother, Matthew, who was in college and working at Pizza Hut, would deliver pizzas and sit with Jon. On Thanksgiving, members of Jon's gym brought him a turkey feast.

"Friends, family, schoolmates — they got me through it," Ham said.

And even then, just days after gymnastics almost paralyzed or even killed him, Ham was thinking about getting back up on the bar.

"I was reading sports psychology books," he said. "Really, I was a head case for a while. I had nightmares about the accident. But I knew deep down what I wanted to do."

The traction didn't work, and Ham underwent a surgical procedure that placed wires and cables in his neck. It was supposed to allow the neck to fuse back together over time.

In the meantime, he had to wear a special halo device to keep his neck straight. The halo was screwed to his head.

"I've never seen him in so much pain," Dwight Ham said of the times the doctors had to adjust the halo. "Water would just stream out of his eyes and his mouth would be wide open, but nothing would come out."

Doctors told Ham he was finished with gymnastics.

Ham thought otherwise. He was scheduled to leave the hospital on a Friday, but convinced nurses and doctors that he was well enough to leave on Wednesday.

"He wanted to go right to the gym," Kathy Ham said. "And when he got there, and everyone saw him walk in, you could hear a pin drop."

Then, the place erupted.

"People were just yelling and clapping and going crazy," Dwight Ham said.

Jon sat next to the horizontal bar and watched.

"I had such mixed emotions," Kathy Ham said. "I knew he wanted to get back at it, but he had been so lucky once, why risk it again?"

Dwight Ham said a strong sense of faith helped them through the ordeal.

"How do you limit a 16-year-old boy from chasing his dream?" he said. "If that's what he believed he needed to do, then that's what he needed to do."

Five months later, Ham was back practicing the basics of gymnastics.

He struggled at first, his muscles weak from months of inactivity. The first time he got back on the high bar, he came home exhausted despite the short workout. Once, while working on a floor exercise routine, he fell on his head and jarred his neck.

"It reminded him of the accident," Kathy said. "He broke out into a cold sweat and grabbed his stuff and ran out of the gym. Everyone thought that he was going to give up then."

But he didn't give up.

After eight months he felt good enough to compete again.

When he finally got to a meet, the judges said he would need to perform the skill that had caused the fall so many months ago.

"He could have just said that he wasn't ready, and nobody would have questioned it," Kathy Ham said. "But he was so determined the whole time."

He not only did the routine, he won the event.

A year after Ham fell and broke his neck, he accepted a scholarship to the University of Illinois.

"I had my doubts along the way," he said. "I didn't show that to many people, but how could you not question returning to gymnastics after something like that happens? I just felt that if I could do it, I wanted to try."

Taliaferro was injured in the waning minutes of Penn State's loss to Ohio State on Sept. 23, 2000. After making what looked to be a routine tackle, he lay motionless on the field.

Taliaferro's injury, like Ham's, was in the vertebral column. But Taliaferro was not as lucky; he did not dodge the bullet. His spinal cord was affected and doctors were not sure if he could recover and walk again.

But with the support of thousands of Penn Staters, a close loving family and a whole lot of determination, Taliaferro walked out of the hospital with the aid of crutches on Jan. 5. He has made even further strides since, including a trip to Happy Valley and an appearance at The Bryce Jordan Center when the men's basketball team took on Michigan State. He looked out and waved from his box seat while a packed house gave him a rousing standing ovation that lasted several minutes.

Taliaferro will take a class at Penn State this summer. He will lift weights and run with the team. He will walk out onto the grass at Beaver Stadium when the Lions open their home schedule against Miami.

That he will never play football again means very little. He'll finish school, lead a productive life and serve as an inspiration for others. Taliaferro has already said he would like to speak to youngsters about the importance of believing in themselves.

Last year, when a Stanford student broke his neck, Ham was called to speak to him.

"We are just humbled that his experience could help other people understand the importance of life," Dwight said.

Indeed, Adam Taliaferro and Jonathan Ham understand the importance of life as well as anyone. They know how fragile life is and also how important it is to push oneself and follow a dream.

They are walking miracles — emphasis on walking.

The NCAA Gymnastics Championships, held this weekend at Ohio State, will be Ham's last competition. In May, he will undergo one more surgery to fix a broken cable in his neck and finally completely fuse the vertebrae. He will get an internship this summer after graduating with a degree in dietetics. He hopes to work as a personal trainer someday.

Dwight and Kathy Ham will be at the NCAA Championships, supporting their son as they have since he started doing flips on the backyard trampoline. There will be memories, there will be tears.

And they will reflect on what Jon's career has meant and what they learned from watching him overcome such a devastating injury.

"It took a long time for me to be able to think about it and not have tears," Dwight said. "But you realize how strong the human will is. You appreciate life more, appreciate each other more. There's something different about life after you've gone through something like this. It's like an inner confidence."

It is that inner confidence that Adam Taliaferro and Jonathan Ham share.