What a year for Detroit. In the last 365 days, General Motors returned to the New York Stock Exchange, the Tigers returned from mediocrity to win a division title, and, yes, the Lions are a legitimate NFL contender. Three years ago, Detroit was an embarrassment. This year, as CNBC's Jim Cramer said, "We are all Detroiters."

But perhaps the best Motor City comeback story belongs to a high school football player named Monique Howard. That's right: Howard is a girl and a football player. And she's not a kicker. She's an offensive lineman -- and a good one. She's gotten a little bit of publicity for blazing a trail. But the path she took to get to a football career has been almost completely overlooked.

That story is raw, gritty, surprising and inspiring. It is uniquely Detroit.

Two years ago, Monique Howard was not a football player, not at her current high school, and not even a starter on her basketball team. She was, quite honestly, a troubled teen.

Howard got into a fight with a basketball teammate at Martin Luther King High School and threw punches. She says she was kicked off the team and encouraged to transfer. "They said I couldn't come back for my senior year," she says. King assistant principal Lawrence Fitz says it was mutually decided that Howard "would benefit from a different environment."

Either way, the girl was gone -- from the team and from King.

This is the kind of story we hear all the time, about aggressive kids in urban settings. They get into fights, they leave school, they spiral. And in this case, it got worse. Last summer, Howard and her mother had a falling out. "We just didn't see eye to eye," Howard says. "I never liked to be in the house. I'm an active person. She always wanted me to be in the house. She said I put basketball before everything."

They agreed Monique should live elsewhere. Her father was not in the picture, so in more than one way, Howard was going nowhere. She was six feet tall and wonderfully gifted. She was a good student. But she was lost.

And then things changed.

Shawn Hill was the basketball coach at one of King's rivals -- Pershing High. Howard heard good things about the coach and asked to switch to Pershing. Her transfer was granted, and she moved.

But she also moved in.

Hill has 10 kids -- nine of his own and one adopted -- in his three-bedroom house on Six Mile Road. They all play basketball. Two of the girls, in fact, are headed for Division I scholarships. When Hill heard about Monique's troubles at home, he figured, well...

"Maybe she needed a male figure, a father figure," Hill says. "I got 10 kids. What's one more? Come on!"

So "Mojo," as Howard is known, moved in with her coach and nine other kids. (Hill's oldest left for college.) You'd think this would lead to even more trouble, but 10 hoop players in a three-bedroom house has been more sitcom than soap opera -- more "Modern Family" than "Big Brother."

"I've known how to deal with kids when they needed special attention," Hill says. "We laid the rules down right away. From then on, she's been a good kid. Accepted everything we asked of her."

Pershing's a distinctly American school. It's in a working class neighborhood populated by every group from African-Americans to Arab-Americans to Bengalis. Sounds a bit cheesy, but Pershing thinks of itself as a big family. "It's really like that," says Hill. "You have to really be there to see it. It's love."

That love seeped in right away for Howard. "There's so much family, so much love she's not used to having," Hill says. "It’s like she went to Pershing all four years."

Howard joined the hoops team, but had to wait a semester to play since she transferred. Her first game was, naturally, against King.

Mojo was almost overwhelmed by emotion, trying so hard to show she belonged on the same court as her former teammates. She got some big rebounds and Pershing won at the buzzer. She had found a home.

Then her story took a turn nobody expected.

A football coach saw Howard throwing a shotput and saw potential for something he needed: a lineman.

Howard is 190 pounds and almost none of it fat. The girl was strong. But an offensive lineman? We've heard of the star kicker being a girl. But this? Of the 44,000 or so Michigan high school football players to take the field each year, an average of 36 are girls. Nobody in Detroit had ever heard of a girl playing in the trenches -- let alone protecting a quarterback from oncoming lineman up to 100 pounds heavier.

But Mojo was fearless. And to his credit, so was her basketball coach.

"I'm looking at her lift weights and thinking, 'Whoa, you really are strong,' " says Hill. "She said, 'Coach, I think I can play football.' So I said, 'If you start, you can definitely not quit.' "

Head coach Charles Spann was skeptical and put her through the difficult fall practice paces. Mojo held up. Actually, she did better than hold up. She earned a starting spot. And in her first game in August, she blocked a defender so hard he landed on his back. Mojo had to be told to "get off him."

"The first day, I didn't know she was out there," says athletic coordinator Ray Williams. "I thought she was just another lineman. I thought she was another boy."

Howard, now a senior, has gotten praise from opposing coaches, opposing players, and even the Detroit Lions, who welcomed her for the first hometown Monday Night Football game in 10 years.

"She's not some kind of gimmick," says Detroit Public Schools official Chuck Johnson. "The girl can actually play."

Skeptics waiting for her to throw another punch should probably shelve that thought. Football's the perfect outlet for Howard's aggression, and any leftover energy is spent playing one-on-one -- or five-on-five -- with her housemates. The hoop behind the house on Six Mile is never idle for long. Her "sisters," Nijcah Hill, 16, and Caprice Dennis, 17, are both headed for D-I schools, so Coach Hill's house probably has as much women's basketball talent as some small American cities.

But perhaps the most remarkable part of the story is the lack of pettiness around her. Usually women in traditionally male sports get undermined immediately. Not Mojo. Sure, she's heard it from opponents. But not from anyone in her school. Maybe that's because the Doughboys -- yes, that is the team's mascot, named after World War I soldiers -- are in the state playoffs for the first time since 2004. They start this week.

Or maybe it's because Howard is quick to recognize her tight end, Lamar Jordan, who helps her with blocking assignments.

Or maybe it's because teamwork seems to be contagious in Detroit these days.

"My attitude has changed," Howard says. "It went from being negative to more positive. I'm in a more positive place with more positive people."

Things are even better with mom, who comes to her games and feels less tension from her daughter. And in the classroom? Williams, who is also her teacher, says her personality is "electric."

"Everyone loves me," Mojo says, "and I love them back."

It's vintage Detroit, circa 2011: A fairy tale ending delivered in the form of a pancake block.

-- Eric Adelson can be reached at adelson@yahoo-inc.com.

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One-on-one, locked up in man, defensive back drills, the two NFL progenies go at it every day during Heritage Hall (Okla.) football practice.

The respective sons of Barry Sanders and Derrick Shepard insist on covering each other and also race during 300-yard shuttle sprints.

"They're always step for step and they're battling," says Heritage Hall coach Andy Bogert. "That's what so great about them. They push each other hard every day."

Despite the intense competition between them, or maybe because of it, the two big men on campus -- 17-year-old Barry James Sanders and 18-year-old Sterling Shepard -- are buddies.

They hang out constantly. The defensive backs jokingly bicker about who should make the defensive calls. Shepard makes fun of Sanders' wardrobe. They play video games, attend Thunder games and recently went to a Maroon 5 concert.

"We're like always with each other," Shepard said. "We're definitely tight off the field."

They have more in common than talent.

At a private school with just 370 high school students, both of these senior football stars are sons of former NFL players. The elder Sanders was a Lions Hall of Fame running back, and Shepard's dad was a wide receiver for the Redskins, Saints and Cowboys.

"It is a crazy thing," Bogert says. "It's pretty amazing."

Because of his legendary father, Sanders has been under the spotlight since junior high. To avoid a potential problem, Bogert gathered his varsity players during Sanders' freshman season, emphasizing the attention was not Sanders' fault. He delivered a speech, which helped quell any possible jealousy from the other players.

"Guys, this is Barry Sanders' son," Bogert told the team. "No matter what happens, he's gonna get press. You guys have got to get used to that. It’s no insult to you."

Though still a bit behind Sanders in national publicity, the Oklahoma-bound Shepard has emerged as Sanders' equal on the field. The Oklahoman even ran a column debating which Heritage Hall star was the best player in the state.

That answer may be in the eye of the beholder, but who wins those daily DB drills?

"He's much quicker than I am," Sanders says. "He's a better receiver than I am (a) corner. So he gets me on most of the one-on-ones when I'm trying to guard him."

Laughing upon hearing Sanders' response, Shepard said: "I think he’s being generous."

They are both more generous than they realize.

Shepard's life took a tragic turn at a young age.

Six-year-old Sterling and his two sisters were celebrating their cousin's 18th birthday at their grandmother’s house when Oklahoma assistant coach, Jackie Shipp, a close family friend, called.

He told the family Derrick Shepard had died.

"It's like your life just being turned upside down in seconds," says Cheri Shepard, Sterling's mother and Derrick's wife.

Derrick Shepard was just 35 when he suffered a heart attack. The University of Wyoming wide receivers coach, who had an enlarged heart, passed away after a game of racquetball.

Of the three siblings under 10, Sterling took the news the hardest. At the funeral, Cheri held him as he wailed like a "wounded animal."

At first Cheri said just getting her children to school was a challenge. But they would adopt Derrick's positive spirit.

"I could either go and hide and put the covers over my head and cry about it or just kind of stick it out," she says. "I would just tell the kids, 'Your dad didn't want us to be sad. He wants us just to enjoy life and be happy. So that's what we’re going to do.'"

Sterling honors his father every game day.

He wears No. 3, Derrick's jersey number when he starred for Oklahoma during 1984 and 1985. Sterling also writes "RIP" and "DSHEP" on his taped-up wrists before each game. After he scores a touchdown, he kneels down and points to the sky.

"I constantly think of him," Sterling says. "He's definitely in my thoughts as I'm playing."

Cheri said Derrick used to make his son, then just a toddler, watch football teams practice and study the players' form. Because of his father's coaching and football knowledge, Sterling believes he would be an even better player if his father were around to provide further instruction.

"I know nothing about football," Cheri says. "So he can't really get any feedback from me."

Barry Sanders does not guide his son in football either, even though he knows how to succeed at the game's highest level.

"The only thing he really talks to me about is being the best man I can be," says Barry J. Sanders, "and what it takes to be successful off the field."

The Detroit legend has focused on being a father instead of a coach to his son. He viewed Sanders hanging out with good peers and continuing to avoid negative influences as a far more important goal.

"I can't think of anything I've given him advice on as far as (playing) ball," Sanders says. "There's going to be a lot of advice he's going to need, and probably the thing that he'll need the least help with will be football ... The football part of it -- even though it's not easy -- is a heck of a lot easier than a lot of this other stuff that us parents have to guide our kids on."

Arriving at game time and sitting on the smaller, side bleachers, Sanders attends more than half of Heritage Hall's football games. Wearing a hat, he remains inconspicuous, and fans mostly leave him alone, which is what the notoriously reticent Hall of Famer prefers.

Sanders owns a car dealership in Oklahoma but resides in Bloomfield, Mich. with his wife, Lauren, and his three other sons. Barry J. Sanders lives with his mother, Aletha House, in the Oklahoma City area.

Cheri, a human resources manager at Chesapeake Energy, has become the integral figure in Sterling's life.

"My mom has been like a dad and a mom," Sterling says. "There's nothing more I could ask than to have a mom like that."

Shepard truly emerged from Sanders' shadow last season.

As a freshman he was just 5-7, 140 pounds. A concussion slowed his sophomore campaign.

But last year, Sanders suffered a season-ending foot injury in week six, and Shepard filled the void.

"He stepped up big time," Bogert says.

Bogert employed him in a versatile, Wildcat quarterback role. To prevent offenses from keying on Shepard, Bogert moved him around in a similar fashion to the way he used Patriots wideout Wes Welker at Heritage Hall. Bogert was the offensive coordinator during Welker’s playing days.

While playing myriad positions -- quarterback, wide receiver, running back -- Shepard lined up behind center, in the slot, in the backfield and in motion.

"He's a very versatile athlete," Bogert says. "He literally played every offensive position we had."

And the results were staggering. Shepard scored 34 touchdowns. He had 1,015 receiving yards and 571 rushing yards. On defense, Shepard added 103 tackles and eight interceptions.

During the 3A state title game, Kingfisher led Heritage Hall, 14-0, at halftime, and Bogert approached Shepard.

"Settle down," Bogert told his player. "We're going to put this game in your hands."

Shepard responded with four second-half touchdowns, and Heritage Hall won, 28-21.

The 5-11, 185-pounder has started 2011 in the same scintillating fashion, returning the opening kickoff for a 94-yard touchdown.

On offense this year, Bogert still uses him in Wildcat formations about five times a game, but Shepard mostly plays wide receiver.

"You throw it up to him, and it's almost a guaranteed catch," Sanders says. "Any time he gets the ball, he's a threat to score."

Shepard and Sanders complement each other. The 5-10, 185-pound Sanders spearheads the running game, while Shepard does the same for the passing game. Sanders has 346 total yards and nine touchdowns, and Shepard has 547 and seven.

On the defensive side, Sanders is the shutdown cornerback while Shepard roams at free safety. But if they face a pass-heavy offense, they both play corner.

At Oklahoma, Shepard likely will play slot receiver. He has a 40-inch vertical leap and 4.4, 40 speed. Scouts will be watching.

"If he stays healthy,” Bogert says, "I firmly believe he'll play on Sundays."

The defending 3A state champions are more than just Shepard and Sanders.

The Chargers, 5-0, have 18 seniors, and six players likely will go on to play Division-I football, including 6-3, 240 lb. tight end/defensive tackle Quintaz Struble and 6-1, 280 offensive/defensive lineman Markus Wakefield.

"It's the most talent we've had," Bogert says.

After this season Shepard and Sanders will go their separate ways.

Shepard will attend Oklahoma, where he has deep ties. His father and two uncles, Woodie and Darrell Shepard, also played there. Derrick was a graduate assistant at Oklahoma before he joined Mark Stoops on the Wyoming staff, and Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops helped Shepard land that Wyoming job.

"He was a big part of my life," Sterling says of his dad, "and I wish he had stuck around to see what I'm doing now."

Sanders says he will announce his decision at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl and is considering UCLA, Stanford, Florida State, Alabama and Oklahoma State.

As a result of the latter option, the trash talk between Sanders and Shepard escalates before the latest chapter of the OU-OSU Bedlam Series.

"They give each other crap all the time," Bogert says.

But they also give each other support -- not the kind that replaces an every day father figure, but definitely the kind that continues what a father started.

Shepard will attend his dad's school. Sanders has not yet decided if he will follow in his father's footsteps at OSU.

But whether Sanders is on his rival's sideline or a different field altogether next season, Shepard will miss him.

"That's my boy," Shepard says. "Not being with him every day is going to be kind of tough."

Tune in to RivalsHighTV this weekend and all season long!

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Twenty-five years ago, Nancy Philippine and her husband packed their bags and headed west. West from France. West to California. To live the California dream. And now, 25 years later, their twin boys, Matthias and Thibault are experiencing the American dream, fencing their way to the top.

The boys, recently 15 and sophomores in high school, followed in their older brother’s footsteps, and entered the fencing scene at age 9.

"We tried it for a little bit," Nancy said. "They liked it, but it wasn't really what they were enjoying at the time. So we stopped. They started again in sixth grade and here we are now, a little older."

A little older and a little more accomplished. Last year, at the age of 14, both boys were ranked as two of the top ten fencers in the nation. This year, breaking into a new age group of 15- to 17-year-olds, the twins are already ranked 27, Thibault, and 34, Matthias, in epee, the fiercest style of fencing. Epee involves hits to the entire body but only with the tip of the blade.

Matthias and Thibault train ten hours a week, fencing two hours a night with their clubmates, and once weekly against each other.

"We always push each other and we're actually very competitive," said Thibault. "I don't want him to get any better than me. We always try to get past each other."

When preparing for tournaments, the twins add nine hours weekly to their training.

"It provides good discipline," Nancy said. "When you go fence for two hours at night, it means the homework has to be done or you have more to do when you get back. It’s a lot of discipline and makes everything work."

Being twins, the two look alike and seem to feed off of each other. Finishing each other's sentences seems to be a frequent occurrence, but Matthias and Thibault have never been confirmed as identical twins.

"We never tried to figure that part out," Nancy said. "They look a lot alike, and they have a lot of things in common, but they also do a lot of things that are very different. We consider them each individuals. We don't really want to know that type of twin thing. They are really individuals to us."

And outside of fencing, that seems to be the case. One has a girlfriend, while the other does not. Thibault plans to pursue a math or science oriented career, while Matthias is contemplating following in his parents' footsteps and entering the computer world.

But none of that matters when the two step into the piste for a bout, awaiting the attack of their opponent. What matters are their goals, what they work toward with every single move of the blade.

"The holy grail of fencing would be the Olympics one day," Matthias said. "But I think it’s a lot more reasonable for us to make the US team for fencing."

The United States has two teams for fencing, one for under the age of 16 and one for under the age of 19. Both of which the brothers qualify for. To make these teams, fencers must score enough points at tournaments during the season to land within the top four nationally at season's end.

The boys spent the summer in France, where they are considered "Americans" but are now back in California where they are considered "Frenchies."

"A lot of our friends think it's very stereotypical that we fence because we're French," Matthias said.

The twins are currently training for a local tournament in two weeks, but their main focus is their first national meet in October. Matthias and Thibault train alongside nationally ranked fencer Keith Lichten.

Even as a freshman at Alexander Central High School in the small western North Carolina town of Taylorsville, Chelsea Wilkinson forced softball coach Monte Sherrill to make a lineup change because of her pitching prowess.

The 2009 Cougars had a two-time all-state pitcher in Megan Laxton returning for her senior year, but Sherrill’s steadfast rule is to play the best players. Wilkinson fit that description, so Sherrill installed his freshman in the circle, and Laxton gracefully changed positions.

"She was basically a superstar waiting to happen in many regards," Sherrill said.

That wait did not last much longer than it takes Wilkinson's devastating riseball to zoom past helpless batters.

Dominant from the get-go, Wilkinson helped lead the Cougars to the 2009 Class 4A state championship, giving up three hits and striking out 12 in the final game.

"It was a little nerve-wracking," Wilkinson said. "But the catcher (Lauren Elder), she's one of my best friends and she also was a freshman starting, so it made me feel a lot better, seeing her right there and knowing she was in the same shoes."

Wilkinson's nerves are long gone, and her mastery of opposing hitters has persisted.

After two more seasons that included a second state title in 2011, Wilkinson has climbed within striking distance of several state records, earned a scholarship to North Carolina State and also developed into a stellar hitter.

"She's lethal on the rubber and in the batter's box, so she's the total package as far as softball players go," Sherrill said.

As a junior this past season, to go with a .358 batting average and seven home runs, Wilkinson compiled a 31-2 record. She struck out 370 batters in 212 innings, logged a 0.66 ERA and was named a first-team All-American by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association while earning her second straight Gatorade North Carolina softball player of the year award.

Wilkinson also struck out 52 batters in four games on her way to earning MVP honors in the state championship series for the second time.

"It is without a doubt one of the best feelings ever," Wilkinson said of the state titles. "The two that we've won were so exciting and fun, and hopefully we'll go again this year. ... There's nothing like it."

In her career, Wilkinson is 89-5 with 63 shutouts, 15 no-hitters, 11 perfect games and 1,079 strikeouts in 575 innings. That leaves her on pace to break the state career records for wins (106) and shutouts (79) and with a shot to do the same for perfect games (17) and strikeouts (1,455). That's despite the fact that the pitching rubber was moved back to 43 feet from 40 after her freshman season.

Sherrill credits Wilkinson's success partly to the mental fortitude instilled in her by her father Robby, a former college baseball player, and partly to her riseball.

Wilkinson also throws a change-up and a couple of different breaking pitches but identifies the rise as her best offering.

Traveling at more than 60 miles per hour from a short distance, the rise explodes upward at the last moment. Most high school players are unable to pick up the spin of the ball in time and swing under it, explained Jim Blanton, head coach of Hibriten, a conference foe of Alexander Central.

"Men who played baseball or slow-pitch softball even, they don't understand how hard a riseball is to hit," Blanton said. "A riseball leaving the hand, it looks so fat. ... (Wilkinson's riseball) moves so much, the chances of you getting on top of it aren’t very good."

The fact that the rise is only part of Wilkinson's repertoire makes it that much more difficult to combat.

"There’s no way to prepare for it," Blanton said. "If you try to dial in on one pitch, she can kill you with two or three others."

As deadly as she is the circle, Wilkinson is entirely unassuming outside of it, always deflecting credit to her teammates. Her coach describes her as someone who is "very humble, very down to earth,” but also has assumed a leadership role on the team.

"She's so soft-spoken," Sherrill said, "but when she talks, everyone listens."