With the crowd booming, cheerleaders chanting and players shouting, William Becker (11) runs across the court, making every last second count while the clock ticks down to the end of the fourth quarter....

While most children spent their days on playgrounds, William Edwards was raised among steel shrimp trawlers, towering bridges and piling foundations, his days framed by airplanes and helicopters overhead....

In early Februrary, a crowded classroom filled with competitors, coaches and judges talked in hushed whispers as they scrutinized the quarter-final round of Champion Public Forum, a fast paced, 45-minute,...

The boat slides up to the starting line flanked by seven others in adjacent lanes, oars slicing through the waters in perfect synchronization as athlete adrenaline and nerves hang palpable in the air....