When Don Martini first told his wife, Janice, that he planned on building a replica of the old Giants Stadium in their garage, she called him crazy.

Now, several years and $20,000 later, the 75-year-old Martini has finished his project. And crazy as it might sound, the model has turned out to be an extremely impressive tribute that is gaining nationwide publicity. It is thought to be one of the only replicas, and almost certainly the most detailed, of Giants Stadium.

Martini spent eight hours a day for two years constructing his masterpiece, a nearly exact replica of the stadium which was torn down in 2010. Martini's 20-foot-by-17 foot stadium includes two small TVs (which play classic Giants games on loop), sponsor billboards and even tiny Gatorade jugs. It has 65,000 seats, a slight deviation from the old stadium.

"I know, there should be 80,000," Martini told The Star-Ledger. "But there’s only so much room inside."

Martini has plenty of building experience. The Blairstown, N.J., native was able to retire in his mid-50s after inventing and patenting a universal assembly jig for cabinet making. Since then he's built everything from dining room chairs to a remote control boat big enough to hold his grandchildren. At one-point he thought about creating a 40-foot replica of the Empire State Building, but was discouraged by all the permits he would need to pull off the project.

The stadium is far from Martini's only shrine to Big Blue. Indeed, the garage that holds the stadium is now decked out in Giants memorabilia. It includes autographed photos from each Super Bowl team, a wall-sized photo of the New York skyline, a stadium timeline and three cookie jars filled with blue-and-white M&Ms.

Now, Martini has to decide what he'd like to do with the stadium. He enjoys keeping it in his garage, where he can check it out whenever he wants. His son has suggested he give it to the Giants, perhaps in exchange for season tickets.

For photos of Martini and his project, see here.

A peek at the top five rushers in the NFL through four weeks reveals several household names and one not-so-familiar one: Marshawn Lynch, Jamaal Charles, LeSean McCoy, Arian Foster and ... Alfred Morris?

Morris, who has perhaps taken a backseat to that other Washington Redskins rookie who lines up with him in the offensive backfield, has come bursting out of the gates this season. Through four games, Morris has rushed for 376 yards on 82 attempts. His four rushing touchdowns ties Arian Foster and Robert Griffin III for tops in the league.

While other running backs in Morris' class were more heralded coming out of college -- Trent Richardson, Doug Martin, David Wilson and more -- the Pensacola, Fla., native has relied on an unrelenting work ethic that first landed him a spot on the Redskins' roster. Eleven running backs were taken before Morris in April's NFL draft, and he has outpaced each of them.

Morris credits his parents for instilling him with a solid appreciation for hard work. His mother, Yvonne, went back to school to get a bachelor's and Master's degree while raising Morris and his six brothers.

"It just let me know that, all the things she had on top of the school work, it’s nothing too hard," Morris told the Washington Post. "If you really want it, just go out there and reach it."

Morris' father, Ronald, acted as a parent to his own siblings as well as Morris and his brothers.

"He was working construction and going to school, doing stuff like this, buying his brothers and sisters school supplies and school clothes," Morris said. "Just that hard work was instilled in us when we were growing up. I’m just trying to go out there and make them proud no matter what I do. I’m just thankful for them. They’re the fuel for my fire."

Morris played both running back and linebacker in high school, and Florida Atlantic University was the only school to offer him a scholarship. Despite not knowing exactly where Florida Atlantic was located, Morris accepted. He went on to start for three years and tally 31 touchdowns and more than 3,500 rushing yards. But at the NFL's draft in April, 172 names were called before Morris'.

Now, Morris is one of the league's rising young stars, a feat that no one expected. Well, almost no one.

"Am I surprised? Not really. Not performance-wise," Morris told the Washington Post. "Just more than anything, surprised that my opportunity came sooner than I thought it would come. But I always told myself, 'All you need is the opportunity and once you get it, you make the most of it.'"

Through it all, Morris has managed to stay true to his roots. In fact, he still drives the 1991 Mazda 626 that he picked up as a junior at Florida Atlantic.

"It has some sentimental value to it now," Morris told the Redskins' website. "It just keeps me grounded, where I came from and all the hard work for me to get to this point. So that's what helps me."

Players across the NFL will sport pink apparel this Sunday and throughout October as part of the NFL's partnership with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The pink gloves, pink sleeves, pink sweatbands and more were approved by the NFL in 2009. Pink cleats were added to the approved list later that year, but only after one star running back's inspiring quest to raise awareness for the disease.

DeAngelo Williams' mom, Sandra Hill, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. The diagnosis came in the middle of Williams' junior season at Memphis, so Hill waited to tell her son. Hill, whose three sisters died of breast cancer, first tried chemotherapy and then underwent a double mastectomy. She told Williams after the surgery.

"I was a little upset with her at first," Williams told the New York Times in 2009. "Then I looked at the big picture -- she's still here, she's still fighting. She went through it without a lot of people knowing. Her detecting it early was the reason she was able to pull through it."

In the summer of 2009, with his mother's cancer in remission, Williams heard about the NFL's plan to allow players to wear pink items during the month of October. He noticed that cleats were missing from the list of approved pink items, so he asked Panthers director of community relations Riley Fields if he thought the NFL would approve of pink cleats. Fields thought it was a good idea, and he petitioned the league.

"Nothing is stronger than wearing pink on the thing that keeps you going in the National Football League and that's your cleats," Williams said. "Because if you don't have a firm foot in the ground you're going to slip. I made a suggestion to the league, well to Riley (Fields), and Riley took it to the league and they OK'd it."

Williams and teammate Muhsin Muhammed, whose mother and mother-in-law are breast cancer survivors, first wore pink cleats on Oct. 11, 2009, during the Panthers' game against the Washington Redskins.

"It's amazing to see where DeAngelo's idea has gone," Fields said in 2011. "From a simple conversation in June of 2009 to Williams said a few months later."

It didn't take long for Williams' honorable crusade to begin changing lives.

"Pink is not just a color," Williams told the Charlotte Observer last year. "It's a lifesaver. It's awareness. So when people see pink they want to ask questions and they want to follow up. I had a lady stop me and said just because of what I saw during the game, meaning the color, (she) was going to get examined. I asked her does it run in your family. She said no but just because I support that cause I'm going to go out and make sure I'm OK. I walked off like, whew, if we reach one, we reach millions. If we reach millions we're doing our job."

Al Davis was a maverick and a pioneer whose Hall of Fame career included stints as head coach, general manager, league commissioner and controlling partner of the Oakland Raiders franchise. Davis died on Oct. 8, 2011, from heart failure. He was 82. A new authorized biography, Just Win, Baby: The Al Davis Story, by veteran sportswriter Murray Olderman, takes a closer look at Davis behind the scenes. One of Davis' legacies was helping businessmen break into the sports ownership game. This excerpt details how he brought some of the most prominent owners to the table:

The man who had the greatest influence on Davis' life as a team owner in professional sports was someone he never met. In the book, Veeck as in Wreck, by Ed Linn, baseball owner Bill Veeck laid it all out for Davis, how to buy a team with very little money. Davis claimed the book, a big instrument in his life, "taught me about partnerships." It taught him about appreciation of property.

His knowledge of the tax laws and how to buy teams influenced acquaintances to become sports owners: Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Bulls, Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers, Ed DeBartolo Jr. of the San Francisco 49ers, and the Glazers of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (they originally tried to get Baltimore but were steered away, according to Davis, because Neil Austrian, the NFL business manager, didn't want them there -- Austrian resigned when some files were uncovered in which he vilified league owners as dumb people). Davis asserted he gave Carroll Rosenbloom the idea that he could trade his Baltimore Colts for the Los Angeles Rams and pay no taxes, and Davis advised him on the novel exchange of franchises.

Alex Spanos, a huge mall developer based in Stockton, California, let it be known that he wanted to consult the best mind in football to get a professional team. Alex contacted Davis through Paul Christopoulos, who was a prominent figure in the Greek community in California's San Joaquin Valley. Christopoulos was instrumental in building the Arco Arena for the Sacramento Kings. Sacramento interests pursued the Raiders and offered the team $50 million and a new stadium to move there. Christopoulos was selling increments of development land in the arena area, and Davis bought a parcel that he never touched but retained ownership of. He never considered Sacramento seriously as a home for his team.

Paul Christopoulos called Davis and said, "Alex Spanos wants to go to the top of the mountain. He wants to meet you." Spanos arrived one day at the Raiders' headquarters, at the time in an industrial park in Oakland off Doolittle Avenue; he was accompanied by five staff members—they used to take a consensus vote on every project Spanos undertook. Davis informed him that the San Francisco 49ers were available for $17 million and baseball's Oakland A's could be had for about $10 million. Spanos and staff huddled on the spot and passed on both opportunities. However, he later acquired the San Diego Chargers from Gene Klein for a sum estimated to be between $75 and $80 million. "Alex and I always sat close to each other at league meetings," said Davis. "Once I came into the room, and his son, Dean, was there. I said to Alex, 'You know, you can get [$400 million] for your team now.' He turned around and went, whack, to Dean's head. 'Listen to Al,' the father said. ‘He knows what he's talking about.'" Dean took over the operating reins of the Chargers from his father.

Spanos brought another entrepreneur to see Davis during an offseason respite at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas. His friend was from Chicago and involved in syndicated real estate. He and Spanos did a lot of business together. Davis found out that the man, Jerry Reinsdorf, was from his high school in Brooklyn, Erasmus Hall. Davis related that he went to a blackboard and showed Reinsdorf how he could own 10 percent of a team, be the general partner, get five or six limited partners, or maybe eight, each owning 10 percent, and he'd control the whole thing. Bill Veeck laid out the basics for Davis in his book.

"Wow," said Reinsdorf, "I never knew that."

Reinsdorf went on to buy both the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox. Just before he closed the deal on the baseball team, he called Davis for his opinion. Davis said, "Don't worry about the price. Do it. It'll double in value within two or three years."