Adam J. Taliaferro (born January 1, 1982) is an American politician who served in the

New Jersey General Assembly The New Jersey General Assembly is the lower house of the New Jersey Legislature. Since the election of 1967 (1968 Session), the Assembly has consisted of 80 members. Two members are elected from each of New Jersey's 40 legislative districts f ...

from the 3rd district from 2015 to 2022. He is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

player whose recovery from a paralyzing

spinal cord injury A spinal cord injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal cord that causes temporary or permanent changes in its function. Symptoms may include loss of muscle function, sensation, or autonomic function in the parts of the body served by the spinal cor ...

sustained while playing

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover Wide receiver, receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such Play from scrimmage, offensive running plays as sweep ...

for the

Penn State Nittany Lions The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The interc ...

gained national media attention. He served on the Gloucester County

Board of Chosen Freeholders In New Jersey, a Board of County Commissioners (until 2020 named the Board of Chosen Freeholders) is the elected county-wide government board in each of the state's 21 counties. In the five counties that have an elected county executive, the ...

for three years before his 2015 appointment to the New Jersey General Assembly. He served three terms before losing re-election in 2021.

Football career

High school

Growing up in

Voorhees Township, New Jersey Voorhees Township is a township in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 29,131, reflecting an increase of 1,005 (+3.6%) from the 28,126 counted in the 2000 census. Voorhee ...

, he was a standout

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive handoffs from the quarterback to rush the ball, to line up as a receiver to catch the ball, and block. Ther ...

and cornerback for the

Eastern Regional High School Eastern Regional High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school for students in ninth through twelfth grades from Berlin Borough, Gibbsboro and Voorhees Township, three communities in Camden County, New Jersey, United States, o ...

Vikings. In two years of varsity football at Eastern High School, he averaged 9.4 yards per carry, racking up 62

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...

s, and seven

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team ...

s. Taliaferro was also a four-year varsity starter in

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, and set his school's record in the high jump at .

Penn State

In 2000, Taliaferro joined the

Penn State Nittany Lions football The Penn State Nittany Lions team represents the Pennsylvania State University in college football. The Nittany Lions compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Big Ten Conference, which they joined in 1993 af ...

team as one of the top-rated freshmen of their 2000 recruiting class. Taliaferro earned playing time as a true freshman for

Joe Paterno Joseph Vincent Paterno (; December 21, 1926 – January 22, 2012), sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1966 to 2 ...

's Nittany Lions, despite Paterno's well-documented tendency to

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after ...

freshman players.

Injury and recovery

On September 23, 2000, while playing in only the fifth game of his college career, Taliaferro sustained a career-ending

while tackling tailback Jerry Westbrooks during Penn State's game versus

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

. Taliaferro's helmet had hit Westbrooks' knee during the tackle, bursting the fifth cervical vertebra in his neck and bruising his

spinal cord The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the sp ...

. Unable to control his fall, the crown of his helmet hit the turf and his body rolled awkwardly over his neck. Taliaferro was

paralyzed Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 5 ...

on the hit, which left him with no movement from the neck down. Taliaferro had surgery at the Ohio State Medical Center to fuse his C-5 vertebra. After successful surgery, Taliaferro was airlifted back to

Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Thomas Jefferson University Hospital is the flagship hospital of Jefferson Health, a multi-state non-profit health system based in Philadelphia. The hospital serves as the teaching hospital for Thomas Jefferson University. History Originall ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, to begin his recovery. Although surgery was successful, Taliaferro was only given a 3% chance of ever walking again. He began his well-publicized rehab at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. After eight months of rehab, Taliaferro had learned to walk again. Taliaferro returned to Penn State less than a year after his injury. He led the Penn State Nittany Lions football team onto

Beaver Stadium Beaver Stadium is an outdoor college football stadium on the campus of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. It has been home to the Penn State Nittany Lions of the Big Ten Conference since 1960, though some parts of ...

's field for the first game of the 2001 season against the

Miami Hurricanes The Miami Hurricanes (known informally as The U, UM, or The 'Canes) are the intercollegiate sports teams that represent the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. The Hurricanes compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic A ...

in front of a record crowd of 109,313. Taliaferro skipped, then jogged onto the field in front of an emotional Penn State crowd. He remained part of the football team as a student-assistant coach under

. Taliaferro earned a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in Labor and Industrial Relations from Penn State in 2005. In 2001, a book was written by Sam Carchidi and Scott Brown 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. The foundation was created in 2001, and continues to grow each year. The foundation has been said to raise over $80,000 per year for spinal cord injuries.

Political career

Gloucester County Freeholder

On November 8, 2011, he was elected to serve on the Gloucester County

. A resident of Woolwich Township, he assumed office on January 6, 2012. He subsequently won reelection to the Freeholder board in 2014 and served until his appointment to the General Assembly.

New Jersey General Assembly

Following the resignation of Assemblywoman

Celeste Riley Celeste M. Riley (born February 4, 1960) is an American Democratic Party politician, who currently serves as the Clerk of Cumberland County, New Jersey. She previously served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 2009 to 2015, where she repre ...

in 2015, Taliaferro was chosen by the local Democratic committees of the 3rd district to fill the vacant seat. He was sworn in on January 29, 2015. He was elected in his own right to the seat in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Taliaferro was appointed as a Deputy Majority Leader on January 9, 2018. He was also chosen to Chair the Law and Public Safety Committee. In 2021, Taliaferro and his running mates, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assemblyman John Burzichelli, were defeated by their Republican opponents.

Committee assignments

*Agriculture and Natural Resources *Education *Legislative Services Commission *Law and Public Safety

Electoral history

Personal life

Taliaferro enrolled at

Rutgers School of Law–Camden Rutgers Law School is the law school of Rutgers University, with classrooms in Newark and Camden, New Jersey. It is the largest public law school and the 10th largest law school, overall, in the United States. Each class in the three-year J.D. p ...

in Camden, New Jersey. He earned his J.D. in May 2008 and worked as a lawyer at Duane Morris in the firm's Cherry Hill office for five years. In September 2012, he joined pharmaceutical company

Bristol-Myers Squibb The Bristol Myers Squibb Company (BMS) is an American multinational pharmaceutical company. Headquartered in New York City, BMS is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and consistently ranks on the ''Fortune'' 500 list of the lar ...

as a healthcare advocate, focusing on mental health, oncology, and HIV products. Taliaferro also runs his own foundation which helps student athletes with head or spinal injuries and is a motivational speaker, doing corporate appearances and speaking at schools. In 2008, he was named the recipient of the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association "Humanitarian Award". In the spring of 2012, he was elected to the Penn State Board of Trustees. Following his appointment to the

, he announced he would not seek a second term on the Board.

References

External links

Adam Taliaferro Foundation
website
"I truly feel blessed"
''

The Daily Collegian The ''Daily Collegian'' is a student-produced news outlet, with a newspaper and website, that is published independently at the Pennsylvania State University. The newspaper is printed twice a week during the fall and spring semesters, and once ...

'', October 21, 2006
"Catching Up With Adam Taliaferro"
Audio interview, August 19, 2005
"After neck injury, Taliaferro still dreams about the NFL"
''

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

'', May 13, 2005
"Taking Purposeful Strides"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', February 20, 2001
"Former Penn State player Adam Taliaferro makes great strides from spinal injury"
Josh Lederman, ''USAToday'', Jul 20, 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Taliaferro, Adam 1982 births Living people American football cornerbacks Eastern Regional High School alumni Penn State Nittany Lions football coaches Penn State Nittany Lions football players People from Voorhees Township, New Jersey People from Woolwich Township, New Jersey Players of American football from New Jersey Rutgers School of Law–Camden alumni County commissioners in New Jersey Democratic Party members of the New Jersey General Assembly Sportspeople from Camden County, New Jersey 21st-century American politicians People from Moon Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania