Toughness and love.

• Author: Zirin, Dave
• Position: Giant Steps Award recipient Shawn Harrington - Edge of Sports

Every year, the legendary sports and social justice activist Richard Lapchick hands out one of the most prestigious awards on the high school coaching landscape: the Giant Steps Award. Officially bestowed by Lapchick's University of Central Florida's National Consortium for Academics and Sports, it is given to the coach who "uses sport as a vehicle for positive social change."

This year, in the basketball category, the Giant Steps Award did not go to some high-profile NCAA head honcho. Instead it was won by someone who has never even been the head coach at the college or even the high school level. Lapchick and his institute honored Shawn Harrington, a humble assistant coach at Marshall High School in Chicago. (People might remember Marshall High as the public high school at the heart of the 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams.)

Why Harrington? Because there is simply no one quite like him. Last year, Harrington, a former star at Marshall who returned home to become an assistant coach, took a bullet to the spine near the school on Chicago's West Side. He was shot while laying his body over his young daughter, protecting her from harm. He is still an assistant coach at Marshall, but taking care of business from the vantage point of a wheelchair.

I spoke to Harrington, and words cannot do justice to the amount of positivity he exudes. I could hear Harrington glow over the phone as he expressed both his shock and joy at being recognized by Lapchick.

"I'm truly, totally still in awe," he said. "I'm really just taking it all in and counting the blessings along the way because it's truly a blessing, one of the many blessings I've received on account of this ordeal."

One of these blessings has been the support he has received from the Marshall community (he never doubted that he would have his position waiting for him when he emerged from the hospital) and the ability to forge a different kind of relationship with his players.

In a neighborhood that has seen more than its share of violence, the players are "more attentive to me when I'm talking now, as crazy as that may sound," he said. "I just know that I'm a perfect example of 'if it can happen to me, it could...