Jeff Benedict

#1 New York Times Bestseller * “A whirlwind of a biography that reads honest and true.” — The Wall Street Journal * “There is beauty and awe in this perfectly pitched biography.” — The New York Times * “Comprehensive, propulsive...and unsparing.” — The New YorkerBased on years of reporting and hundreds of interviews with people from every corner of Tiger Woods’s life this is “a searing biography of golf’s most blazing talent” ( GOLF Magazine )—who has made one of the most remarkable comebacks of all time.In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life. But it turned out he had been living a double life for years—one that exploded in the aftermath of a Thanksgiving night crash that exposed his serial infidelity and sent his personal and professional lives over a cliff. In this “searing biography of golf’s most blazing talent” ( GOLF magazine), Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian dig deep behind the headlines to produce a richly reported answer to the question that has mystified millions of sports fans for nearly a who is Tiger Woods, really?Drawing on more than four hundred interviews with people from every corner of Woods’s life—many of whom have never spoken about him on the record before—Benedict and Keteyian construct a captivating psychological profile of a mixed race child programmed by an attention-grabbing father and the original Tiger Mom to be the “chosen one,” to change not just the game of golf, but the world as well. But at what cost? Benedict and Keteyian provide the starling answers in this definitive biography that is destined to linger in the minds of readers for years to come.“Irresistible…Immensely readable…Benedict and Keteyian bring us along for the ride in a whirlwind of a biography that reads honest and true” ( The Wall Street Journal ). Ultimately, Tiger Woods is “a big American story…exhilarating, depressing, tawdry, and moving in almost equal measure” ( The New York Times ).

AN EXPLOSIVE AND REVELATORY PORTRAIT REPORTED FROM DEEP BEHIND THE SCENES OF BIG-TIME NCAA COLLEGE THE PASSION, THE THRILLING ACTION—AND THE SHOCKING REALITIES THAT LIE BENEATH THIS COLOSSAL, MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS COLLEGE FOOTBALL has never been more popular—or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million. But behind this glittering success are darker “athlete-students” working essentially full-time jobs with no share in the oceans of money; players who often don’t graduate and end their careers with broken bodies; “janitors” who clean up player misconduct; football “hostesses” willing to do whatever it takes to land a top recruit; seven-figure black box recruiting slush funds. And Despite the millions of dollars pouring into the game, 90 percent of major athletic departments still lose money. Yet schools remain caught up in an ever-escalating “arms race”—at the expense of academic scholarships, facilities and faculty. Celebrated investigative journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian were granted unprecedented access during the 2012 season to programs at the highest levels across the country at a time of convulsive change in college football. Through dogged reporting, they explored every nook and cranny of this high-powered machine, and reveal how it operates from the inside out. The the system through the eyes of athletic directors and coaches, high-flying boosters and high-profile TV stars, five-star recruits and tireless NCAA investigators and the kids on whom the whole vast enterprise depends. Both a celebration of the power and pageantry of NCAA football and a groundbreaking, thought-provoking critique of its excesses, The System is the definitive book on the college game.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots—the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century.It’s easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and soon brought on board head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut, making ten trips to the Super Bowl, winning six of them, and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. Today, the team’s twenty-year reign atop the NFL stands as the longest in league history.How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty , acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than two hundred insiders—including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more—as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications.Through his exhaustive research, Benedict uncovers surprising new details about the inner workings of a team notorious for its secrecy. He puts readers in the room as Robert Kraft outmaneuvers a legion of lawyers and investors to buy the team. We listen in on the phone call when the greatest trade ever made—Bill Belichick for a first-round draft choice—is negotiated. And we look over the shoulder of forty-year-old Tom Brady as a surgeon operates on his throwing hand on the eve of the AFC Championship Game in 2018.But the portrait that emerges in The Dynasty is more rewarding than new details alone. By tracing the team’s epic run through the perspectives of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady—each of whom was interviewed for the book—the author provides a wealth of new insight into the complex human beings most responsible for the Patriots’ success. We watch the NFL’s savviest owner treat Brady like a son, empower Belichick to cut and trade beloved players, and spend sleepless nights figuring out diplomatic ways to keep Brady and Belichick together for two decades. We come to understand how a genius head coach keeps his players at an emotional distance and blocks out anything that gets in the way of winning. And we experience the relentless drive, ferocious competitive nature, and emotional sensitivity that allows Brady to continue playing football into his forties.The result is an intimate portrait that captures the human drama of the dynasty’s three key characters while also revealing the secrets behind their success. This is perhaps the most compelling and illuminating book that will ever be written about the greatest professional sports team of our time.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the #1 bestselling author of The Dynasty and Tiger Woods—the “definitive…fantastic” (Sports Illustrated) biography of basketball superstar LeBron James, based on three years of exhaustive research and more than 250 interviews.LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of the twenty-first century, and he’s in the conversation with Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. The reigning king of the game and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire, LeBron wears the crown like he was born with it. Yet his ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined—the truth is vastly more interesting than that. What makes LeBron’s story so compelling is how he won his destiny despite overwhelmingly long odds, in a drama worthy of a Dickens novel. As a child, he was a scared and lonely little boy living a nomadic existence in Akron, Ohio. His mother, who had LeBron when she was sixteen, would sometimes leave him on his own. Destitute and fatherless, he missed close to one hundred days of school in the fourth grade. Desperate, his mother placed him with a family that gave him stability and put a basketball in his hands. “An absorbing chronicle of talent, character, pluck, and luck” (Wall Street Journal) LeBron tells the full, riveting saga of how a child adrift found the will to become a titan. Jeff Benedict, the most celebrated sports biographer of our time, paints a vivid picture of LeBron’s epic origin story, showing the gradual rise of a star who, surrounded by a tight-knit group of teenage friends and adult mentors, accelerated into a speeding comet during high school. Today LeBron produces Hollywood films and television shows, has a social media presence that includes more than one hundred million followers, engages in political activism, takes outspoken stances on racism and social injustice, and transforms lives through his visionary philanthropy. He went from a lost boy in Akron to a beloved hero who uses his fortune to educate underprivileged children and lift up needy families—and brought home Cleveland’s first NBA championship. But LeBron is more than just the origin story of a GOAT or a recap of his multi-championship, multi-MVP, gold medal–decorated career on the court. Benedict delves into LeBron’s relationship with fame and power: how he has cultivated it, harnessed it, suffered from it, and leveraged it. In these pages, we watch his evolution from a player who avoided politics and was widely criticized for not joining his teammates in protesting China’s role in the Darfur genocide to becoming an athlete who partnered with President Obama; campaigned for Hillary Clinton; became an advocate against gun violence, racism, and voter suppression; and openly clashed with President Trump, empowering other athletes to speak out against social injustice. To capture LeBron’s extraordinary life, Benedict conducted hundreds of interviews with the people who were involved with LeBron at different stages of his life. He also obtained thousands of pages of primary source documents and mined hundreds of hours of video footage. Destined to be the authoritative account of LeBron’s life, LeBron is a “masterful…propulsive” (Los Angeles Times) and unprecedented portrait of one of the world’s most captivating figures.

Jeff Benedict examines the lives & careers of devout Mormons who have risen to the very top in American business circles, to show how the strongest Christian values can go hand in hand with a successful business career.

Suzette Kelo was just trying to rebuild her life when she purchased a falling down Victorian house perched on the waterfront in New London, CT. The house wasn't particularly fancy, but with lots of hard work Suzette was able to turn it into a home that was important to her, a home that represented her new found independence. Little did she know that the City of New London, desperate to revive its flailing economy, wanted to raze her house and the others like it that sat along the waterfront in order to win a lucrative Pfizer pharmaceutical contract that would bring new business into the city. Kelo and fourteen neighbors flat out refused to sell, so the city decided to exercise its power of eminent domain to condemn their homes, launching one of the most extraordinary legal cases of our time, a case that ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. In Little Pink House, award-winning investigative journalist Jeff Benedict takes us behind the scenes of this case -- indeed, Suzette Kelo speaks for the first time about all the details of this inspirational true story as one woman led the charge to take on corporate America to save her home.

In Poisoned, Jeff Benedict delivers a jarringly candid narrative of the fast-moving disaster drawing on access to key documents and exclusive interviews with the real-life characters at the center of the drama—the families whose children were infected, the Jack in the Box executives forced to answer for the tragedy, the physicians and scientists who identified E. coli as the culprit, and the legal teams on both sides of the historic lawsuits that ensued. This is the story of the permanent transformation of our food supply chain, and the young maverick lawyer, Bill Marler, who staked his career on bringing the victims justice without compromise. Fast Food Nation meets A Civil Action in this riveting account of how we learned the hard way to truly watch what we eat.

When he's not at a notorious disaster, Doug Owsley is entering tombs and crypts, unwrapping mummies, or climbing into caves to unlock the secrets of bones.In No Bone Unturned, investigative journalist Jeff Benedict not only unveils a compelling portrait of the man behind America's most notorious cases but also gives us a fascinating look inside the world of forensic science as seen through the eyes of a leading specialist.Doug Owsley's extraordinary talent has put his phone number on speed dial for federal agencies, from the FBI to the CIA and the State Department. When the Branch Davidian compound in Waco caught fire, when a terrorist-flown plane crashed into the Pentagon, and when mass graves were uncovered in Croatia, the authorities called Owsley. Through cutting-edge science, instinctive artistry, and dogged tenacity, Owsley painstakingly rebuilds the skeleton, and helps identify it and determine the cause of death.A curator for the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, Doug Owsley has handled over ten thousand human skeletons, more than anyone else in America. He has worked with America's historic skeletons, from, colonial Jamestown burials to Plains Indians to Civil War soldiers to skeletons tens of thousands of years old.That includes the Kennewick Man, a 9,600-year-old human skeleton found in shallow water along the banks of Washington State's Columbia River. It was a skeleton that would turn Owsley's life upside down.Days before Owsley was scheduled to begin studying the skeleton, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seized it and announced they would repatriate Kennewick Man, burying his bones on the land of the Native American tribes who claimed him. Along with seven of America's leading scientists, Owsley sued the U.S. government over custody. At stake was a wide body of knowledge about our past and our history that would be lost forever if the bones were reburied. For six years, Owsley fought a legal and political battle that put everything at risk, jeopardizing his career and his reputation.

Jeff Benedict has seen both good and bad in his career as a journalist. Some of the best are the extraordinary people he has met who have made deliberate choices to live happier lives despite the extreme hardship that each of them have faced. Although life will knock us down from time to time, this book is an important reminder that we all can make a choice to get back up, brush ourselves off, and keep pressing forward.Replace anger with forgiveness through studying the real-life examples of seven inspiring mentors.Avoid discouragement by purposefully recognizing God's hand in your life.Diminish the heartache from tragedy through the concentrated act of serving others.Gain insights from parents who were deliberate in safeguarding their children against harmful influences.Stand strong through life's adversity through the examples of powerful prayer.

Any entrepreneur will love and appreciate this fascinating story sharing the life lessons that Bill Child learned as he built R. C. Willey, a highly successful furniture business eventually bought out by the legendary Warren Buffett. Lessons on leadership, frugality, honesty, integrity, innovation, and customer service will inspire and motivate readers. How do you take a good company and make it one that billionaire Warren Buffett would buy? The blueprints are in the footprints of a remarkable Bill Child. Here are just a few of Bill s Character and work ethic carry more weight than resumes. Change is an essential ingredient for success in the retail industry. Companies that don t adapt don t last. Delegation is vital to growing a small business. True delegation only exists when the leader trusts his people enough to allow them to perform their responsibilities without constant interference.

"The book seems at times like a legal thriller, a psychological drama, a morality tale, and a scandal sheet." -- Richard Tambling, Hartford Journal Inquirer Jeff Benedict, the author of No Bone Unturned , tracks the transformation of the Mashantucket Pequots from a population of one on 214 miserable acres in the early 1970s to today’s largest landowner in Connecticut. Led by a former laborer, Tribal Chairman Richard "Skip" Hayward, the Pequots have become the wealthiest, most politically influential Indian tribe in the United States. In Without Reservation , Benedict exposes startling revelations about the tribe and their casino, Foxwoods.

Discloses the names of the convicted criminals in the NFL, the stunning severity of their crimes, & why they're still playing.

The top national expert on athletes and crime and the author of Pros and Cons brings us a controversial in-depth look at criminals in the NBA The Kobe Bryant rape case and the arrest of Baylor basketball player Carlton Dotson for allegedly murdering teammate Patrick Dennehy, has galvanized the attention of the public and the press on athletes and crime. Jeff Benedict, with his background in research regarding professional athletes and crime, uses these cases as a springboard into an unprecedented look at criminals who play professional basketball. In this raw exposé, Benedict evaluates every single current player in the NBA and his criminal history, revealing new and startling information about NBA players, the crimes they commit, the league’s tolerance and complacency in these instances, as well as the manner in which these cases are handled or disposed of in the justice system.

NOW A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY From Jeff Benedict, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tiger Woods and The Dynasty, Poisoned chronicles the events surrounding the worst food-poisoning epidemic in US the deadly Jack in the Box E. coli infections in 1993.On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with excruciating stomach pain. Less than a week later she was dead. Doctors were How could a healthy child become so sick so quickly? After a frenzied investigation, public-health officials announced that the cause was E. coli and the source was hamburger meat served at a Jack in the Box restaurant. During this unprecedented crisis, four children died and over seven hundred others became gravely ill. In Poisoned, award-winning investigative journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeff Benedict delivers a jarringly candid narrative of the fast-moving disaster, drawing on access to confidential documents and exclusive interviews with the real-life characters at the center of the drama—the families whose children were infected, the Jack in the Box executives forced to answer for the tragedy, the physicians and scientists who identified E. coli as the culprit, and the legal teams on both sides of the historic lawsuits that ensued. Fast Food Nation meets A Civil Action in this riveting account of how we learned the hard way to truly watch what we eat.

While arrests of celebrated college and professional athletes for crimes against women escalate at an alarming rate, popular sports figures routinely escape accountability for their offenses. Shielded by a lucrative sports industry that fosters the athlete's positive image as role model to the nation's youth, few players are successfully prosecuted in the courts and they rarely face sanctions on their eligibility to play. In a work that is sure to generate heated debate, Jeff Benedict thoroughly investigates for the first time athletes' abusive behavior, delving into the full spectrum of complex factors that give rise to and perpetuate the disturbing pattern of frequent sexual and domestic violence toward women. Drawing on extensive and unprecedented interviews with athletes, victims, attorneys, coaches, team officials, and others, Benedict provides an in-depth examination of several incidents of rape, gang rape, and assault by successful sports figures, including the cases of Mike Tyson, Christian Peter and other members of the University of Nebraska football team, and former Boston Celtic Marcus Webb. Benedict's probe confronts such controversial issues as race, class, the groupie phenomenon, the sexually permissive lifestyle of many athletes, the consensual sex defense, and the sports industry's indifference to recruiting or drafting talented athletes with prior criminal records. Benedict concludes with sound proposals for implementing tougher measures and sanctions at both the college and professional levels in order to stem the disquieting number of athletes who commit violent crimes against women.

Jeff Benedict talks about his rare and remarkable experience writing the bestselling book The Mormon Way of Doing Business and shares the motivating and faith-promoting stories of the contributors to the book. He shares behind the seen stories that help shape the book as well as experiences that shaped and nurtured his own faith.

A biografia definitiva do maior jogador de basquete do século XXI, ícone global e bilionário, baseada em três anos de pesquisa e em mais de 250 entrevistas. São muitas histórias improváveis e fascinantes que fizeram de LeBron James o maior ícone de basquete do século XXI, o maior pontuador da história da NBA e o primeiro jogador da liga a se tornar bilionário. Até mesmo porque o garoto pobre nascido em Akron, Ohio (EUA), filho de mãe solo, poderia ter sido jogador de futebol americano. Mas emergiu como atleta de ensino médio mais disputado do basquete de seu país. Neste livro, o jornalista Jeff Benedict apresenta a série de reveses, triunfos e a persistência que fizeram de LeBron o campeão da NBA, sucessor de Michael Jordan e ícone global. É um livro que vai muito além do esporte, com lições inspiradoras sobre liderança e marketing — mostrando, por exemplo, os bastidores da disputa milionária entre Nike, Adidas e Reebok para patrocinar o jovem LeBron de 18 anos. Os leitores também descobrirão como o jogador aprendeu a lidar com a pressão, impôs um estilo de jogo que valorizou o coletivo e construiu um time dos sonhos por onde passou."Inspirador… Uma história sobre talento, coragem e sorte." — The Wall Street Journal"Uma história que mostra o quanto James mudou a percepção sobre o que significa ser um atleta nos tempos atuais." — Associated Press

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LeBron James ist nicht nur der unbestrittene Superstar der US-Profiliga NBA, sondern auch erfolgreicher Unternehmer und Werbeikone. Er ist bekannt für sein politisches Engagement gegen Rassismus und soziale Ungerechtigkeit, ist eng mit Barack Obama befreundet und hat sich mehrfach öffentlich mit Donald Trump angelegt. In den sozialen Medien folgen ihm unfassbare 160 Millionen Menschen.James wuchs arm und ohne Vater in einer Sozialbausiedlung auf. Seine Mutter, die ihn mit 16 Jahren zur Welt brachte, verschwand immer wieder für mehrere Tage. Erst in der Highschool begann er, organisiert Basketball zu spielen. Im College gelang der Durchbruch, heute gilt er als der beste Spieler der Welt.Bestsellerautor Jeff Benedict hat unzählige Quellen durchforstet und Hunderte von Interviews mit LeBrons engsten Weggefährten geführt. Das Ergebnis ist ein einzigartiges Porträt eines der größten Sportler der Welt.

A biografia definitiva do maior jogador de basquete do século XXI, ícone global e bilionário, baseada em três anos de pesquisa e em mais de 250 entrevistas.

LeBron James ist nicht nur der unbestrittene Superstar der US-Profiliga NBA, sondern auch erfolgreicher Unternehmer und Werbeikone. Er ist bekannt für sein politisches Engagement gegen Rassismus und soziale Ungerechtigkeit, ist eng mit Barack Obama befreundet und hat sich mehrfach öffentlich mit Donald Trump angelegt. In den sozialen Medien folgen ihm unfassbare 160 Millionen Menschen.James wuchs arm und ohne Vater in einer Sozialbausiedlung auf. Seine Mutter, die ihn mit 16 Jahren zur Welt brachte, verschwand immer wieder für mehrere Tage. Erst in der Highschool begann er, organisiert Basketball zu spielen. Im College gelang der Durchbruch, heute gilt er als der beste Spieler der Welt.Bestsellerautor Jeff Benedict hat unzählige Quellen durchforstet und Hunderte von Interviews mit LeBrons engsten Weggefährten geführt. Das Ergebnis ist ein einzigartiges Porträt eines der größten Sportler der Welt.

LeBron James ist nicht nur der unbestrittene Superstar der US-Profiliga NBA, sondern auch erfolgreicher Unternehmer und Werbeikone. Er ist bekannt für sein politisches Engagement gegen Rassismus und soziale Ungerechtigkeit, ist eng mit Barack Obama befreundet und hat sich mehrfach öffentlich mit Donald Trump angelegt. In den sozialen Medien folgen ihm unfassbare 160 Millionen Menschen.James wuchs arm und ohne Vater in einer Sozialbausiedlung auf. Seine Mutter, die ihn mit 16 Jahren zur Welt brachte, verschwand immer wieder für mehrere Tage. Erst in der Highschool begann er, organisiert Basketball zu spielen. Im College gelang der Durchbruch, heute gilt er als der beste Spieler der Welt.Bestsellerautor Jeff Benedict hat unzählige Quellen durchforstet und Hunderte von Interviews mit LeBrons engsten Weggefährten geführt. Das Ergebnis ist ein einzigartiges Porträt eines der größten Sportler der Welt.

This book takes a provocative look at specific aspects of professional athletic life that contribute to a climate favourable to athletes sexually assaulting women - a climate which also protects offenders from conviction and punishment. The book focuses on three high-profile incidents, and concludes that the problem is generated more by celebrity than athletic jurors are unable to reach an unbiased verdict because the athletes are held in such high esteem by the public.

LA BIOGRAFÍA DEFINITIVA DE «THE KING»«Fantástica y rica en detalles minuciosos.» Sports Illustrated La historia de LeBron James, la leyendaLeBron James es, sin duda, uno de los más grandes jugadores de baloncesto de todos los tiempos. Con dos medallas de oro olímpicas, cuatro campeonatos de la NBA y otros tantos títulos como mejor jugador del año, «The King» se ha coronado como el máximo anotador en la historia de la NBA, llevando esa corona como si hubiese nacido para ello. Y, sin embargo, el camino que tuvo que recorrer hasta convertirse en una auténtica leyenda no fue fácil. Criado en un barrio humilde de Akron (Ohio) junto a una madre soltera, LeBron tuvo una infancia marcada por la incertidumbre y la ausencia de figuras de referencia. Fue el baloncesto lo que le dio dirección, pasión y propósito. Desde entonces, no ha dejado de avanzar. Pero su historia va mucho más allá de los triunfos deportivos. Figura mediática y referente cultural, ha transformado la imagen del deporte por medio de una vida extraordinaria, llena de victorias épicas, derrotas inolvidables, personas que han marcado su camino y vivencias históricas.LeBron es un retrato fascinante, repleto de detalles y anécdotas sorprendentes, de un campeón irrepetible que ha llegado a trascender la cancha.«La biografía definitiva.» Associated Press «Inspiradora. Una apasionante crónica de talento, carácter y coraje.» Wall Street Journal «Magistral. El retrato de un hombre que, por su propia voluntad, ha seguido siendo un misterio, excepto para aquellos en los que decide confiar. LeBron no es solo una gran crónica deportiva, sino una obra de periodismo vívida y evocadora.» Los Angeles Times «Apasionante. Este relato fidedigno describe la vida del deportista con detalles fascinantes y minuciosos. Incluso los fanáticos más fieles descubrirán algo nuevo de la superestrella.» Publishers Weekly «LeBron es un retrato épico. Con el estilo nítido de Benedict y escenas hábilmente descritas, ofrece el perfil más completo hasta el momento.» Booklist

Extraordinary stories of people who have survived life's most heart-wrenching tragedies and whose Christian faith has remained unshakable. New York Times bestselling author Jeff Benedict has seen both good and bad in his career as a journalist. Some of the best are the extraordinary people he has met who have made deliberate choices to live happier lives despite the extreme hardship that each of them have faced. Although life will knock us down from time to time, this book is an important reminder that we all can make a choice to get back up, brush ourselves off, and keep pressing forward. Each of us will find ourselves at the intersection of happiness and despair. And when that day comes, there are choices we can make that will help us turn and walk down the street called Happiness, says the author. From choosing to forgive to choosing to serve others to choosing to pray, the seven true stories that Jeff shares illustrate the power within each of us to choose to live a happier, more abundant life. Stories include a husband who lost his wife when a young boy inadvertently pulled the trigger of a loaded shotgun;a waitress who nearly drowned after being swept away in a raging flood;a father who lost his one-year-old son to a rare disease;a woman lost at sea during a harrowing storm;a man who was brutally beaten but who chose to forgive his attacker;a mother whose home was demolished by a tornado, whose husband was diagnosed with cancer, and whose nine-year-old son has undergone nearly one hundred surgeries; anda father trying to raise his family in a neighborhood often targeted by gang members.