"He's made his mark in the NFL by multitasking: running, blocking, catching, even passing in a pinch. But Ronnie Brown actually displayed his versatility long before, as a kid in Cartersville, Ga., by pulling an even more difficult double.

"I never really made bad grades, and I was still one of the cool kids," Brown says. "I think a lot of times kids get caught up in thinking that the people that get in trouble are the people that you want to hang around with. There's nothing funny about being held back and having failing grades, and now you're in the situation where you're 13 but you're two grades behind where you're supposed to be. You never see anybody in jail saying, 'I'm glad I'm here.' There's nothing cool about that.""