The US sports stars who went from desolation to stardom

Madrid, May 21 (EFE).- Some of the United States’ most-recognizable sporting personalities were once among the roughly one million children who have no place to call home after school but for the lucky few, a college scholarship provides a lifeline to leave behind a life of loneliness, mourning and helplessness.

This list includes Calvin and Alvin Harrison, Michael Oher, Carmelo Anthony, Jimmy Butler and Kevin Durant.

THE HARRISON TWINS, FROM LIVING IN A CAR TO OLYMPIC GLORY

Calvin and Alvin Harrison’s story has been all about fighting to survive since the moment that Alvin literally came back from being pronounced dead a few minutes after being prematurely born.

From the age of 12, for a decade, they lived between Florida and a crime-ridden Orlando neighborhood until they went to live with their father in Salinas, California.

It was at the darkest moment, when they lived in a car after their father’s sudden departure, that they took the first step towards glory as Alvin made the US Olympic team in 1995. His brother would follow suit.

A year later, Alvin won the 4×400 relay gold medal at Atlanta’s Summer Olympics, a fate that he would repeat four years later in Sydney alongside his brother. Between them, they have won three Olympic gold medals and a silver one.

The finale, however, is not as inspiring, as they were axed from the US Olympic team having tested positive for prohibited substances before the 2004 Athens Olympics.

MICHAEL OHER, FROM HOMELESS TO NFL

His story inspired the Blind Side movie starring Sandra Bullock, who won an Oscar for her role as the woman who provided a towering, outcast orphan a place to call home and, above all, hope.