Despite another embarrassing season for the Canes, Graig Cooper has provided UM fans with a light at the end of their dark, dark tunnel. The freshman running back solidified his status as a rising star against Bobby Bowden's dadgum Seminoles in October. G Coop rushed for 682 yards and four touchdowns during his inaugural season, and looks to match that in just one game when the Hurricanes visit the Florida Hators ... umm, Gators ... next September. Best remembered for his ankle-breaking juke against Texas A&M at the Orange Bowl, Cooper is a triple threat with soft hands, quick feet, and a hard-nosed style of play. A fan favorite who has shown flashes of much-anticipated greatness, G Coop is a Category 5 player that will blow by rival defenders as UM football begins a new era at Dolphin Stadium.

Some kids would rather portray the Bad News Bears than actually be part of a championship baseball team. If your little cherubs happen to fall into this category, forget Little League this summer and treat your children to Creative Camp instead. Here some of the town's top acting teachers will introduce the wonderful world of theater. Kids get to write and produce their own movies, incorporating new skills from acting, directing, dance, music, and other performance fields. They also learn to use video and audio equipment, musical instruments, and a professional stage. If that isn't enough, they'll enjoy field trips to theatrical productions and local attractions, and receive goody bags filled with magic tricks, juggling supplies, and a T-shirt. You can choose from two locations, one in Kendall and the other in the Gables. Costs range from $380 to $1,600, depending on length. (Scholarships are available.) Just remember to thank us at the Oscar ceremony.

It's the weekend, or maybe it's just Tuesday, and people are shuffling into the clubs all over Miami and dancing until they produce enough sweat to fill a small pool. To the rest of the world, that is all Miamians are willing to do — and many natives believe this myth. But if you are dreading another night of clubbing, there is hope. Skydiving, a sport once believed to have been reserved for slightly demented adrenaline junkies, has been around long enough that it's not just for the insane anymore. It still isn't for the faint of heart, but the sheer thrill of dropping from an airplane flying two miles above land is sure to leave your heart pumping faster than any night at Mansion. Miami Skydiving Center offers tandem jumps, which means your instructor is strapped to your back and all you have to do is enjoy the fall, for $169. However steep that price might seem, you'd spend that on drinks at the club, where it's a lot less fun to fall down.

Let's face it — the Everglades isn't exactly the Appalachian Trail. There's nothing to climb, and vistas are scarce. Hiking paths are few and far between, and where they exist, they tend not to go anywhere special. When you get right down to it, the Glades is just a big old swamp; so if you want to see it the right way, you've got to get swampy. Luckily Everglades National Park affords an opportunity not available in the dry climes up North: slough-slogging, an activity described in unusually poetic language on the park website as "wading through the shallow waters in search of wildlife and the secrets of water." Plus it's as cheap an outing as the cheapest cheapskate could desire; all you need is a willingness to spend the day waist-deep in muck and mud, soiled from head to toe, your limbs bloodied by saw grass. Wearing a pair of rubber boots (available at most hardware stores for a couple of bucks) isn't a bad idea. You can slog anywhere there's enough muck to stick a shoe in. Just watch out for alligators. And pythons. And snakes. Don't forget the snakes.

The self-taught experimental filmmaker and artist creates throwback black-and-white slapstick horror movies reflecting an upbringing one could call Southern Gothic. As a tyke, Childree spent his summers with his grandparents in Mobile, Alabama, where his budding imagination romped wild. His granny, Doris Wall, had been a Vaudeville performer as a young girl. Grandpap J.F. Walls regaled the impressionable Childree with lurid tales of his adventures as a sea salt. Childree recollects that Doris once lost her glass eye through the wooden slats of a pier and he helped fish for it. His mother, Barbara Doetsch, who had once been a Catholic nun but gave up the church to raise a family, was a creative influence as well. She spooled Super8 horror reels for the young Childree at their Plantation home, infecting him with the celluloid bug. The 37-year-old auteur went on to helm The Flew, rated one of the top 50 midnight movies of the past decade. His quirky shorts earned him in recent years the South Florida Consortium and Native Seeds grants. It Gets Worse, Childree's latest opus, unfolds the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like account of a seafarer whose scrotum blows up to monstrous proportions when his deadly alter ego possesses him. The filmmaker says he was inspired by a story his grandpa once told him about a visit to Brazil, where he encountered a man suffering from elephantiasis, which caused his balls to grow so large he had to cart them around in a wheelbarrow when out on the town. The amazing thing about Childree's irreverent, hallucinatory productions is that he writes, directs, produces, and stars in them.

Don't tell Christina you liked Million Dollar Baby. She's heard it before, and if that's your only reference for women's boxing, she knows you don't know anything. The number one amateur female boxer in the United States trains at the South Florida Boxing gym, where she sometimes spars with men, including her boyfriend, though she says they can't forget she is a girl; they just don't hit hard enough. Not a problem when she's fighting other women. In 2007, she was the National Golden Gloves Champion, and she's hungry for more titles. Christina dreamed of going to the Olympics when she was a girl, and she thought swimming might take her there. But during her senior year on the Hurricanes swim team, she suffered a shoulder injury. That was four years ago. After college, she craved the competition of her life in the pool, and she found boxing. As a leader in the sport, she might have made it to the Olympics in 2008, but a motion to add women's boxing to the games was denied. She was disappointed, but she's already looking forward to the next national championship. Don't feel bad for her: She's tough.

For a while, having Scott Storch as a friend was pretty cool. After all, who doesn't want a pal who owns a 10-bedroom, $10-million waterfront palace on Palm Island with a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and a Bugatti Veyron 16.4 in the driveway? This is a guy who makes beats for Lil Wayne, Fat Joe, and 50 Cent. But it turns out the multimillionaire music producer isn't so cool. This past January, his baby's mama, Dalene Jennifer Daniel, accused Storch of being a deadbeat dad. In Miami-Dade court documents, Daniel claims Storch is habitually late with his $7,500-a-month child support payments for their two-year-old son, Jalen. In addition, Storch's check to enroll his kid in the Florida Prepaid College Plan bounced. Storch's son is not the only one getting the shaft. The music mogul owes $445,916 in property taxes since 2006 and, this past December, paid the IRS $79,259 in back taxes. The guy is so broke he listed his $20-million, 117-foot yacht, Tiffany, for auction on eBay. Reserve bid: $600,000.

Perhaps Jim Hampton was a victim of that old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." Maybe he was just lucky, but Hampton's years as a journalist led him to some of the most talked-about news stories of the past 40 years. He was in Chicago for the 1968 Democratic National Convention and at Kent State only a couple of years later. It would be at the Miami Herald, though, where he and his editorial board deservedly won a Pulitzer Prize in connection with their work on freeing 2,000 Haitians trapped at the Krome Detention Center. Hampton was a beloved editor whose troops spoke about him with adoration — and who spoke about the newspaper's reporters in a kind way that was never the norm at the Magic City's largest daily. Once long ago, when a Herald scribe who happens to be editor of New Times now, was at dinner with the kindly gent in Tallahassee after an arduous legislative session, Hampton turned and said, "You know, you guys kicked ass this session. It's too bad we can't get more of [those damn legislators] indicted." Hampton was a brilliant, hard-working, hard-drinking Heraldite who toiled for the paper from 1978 to 1998 through some of the most interesting years Miami has ever seen. It was also he who supervised cartoonist Jim Morin when he won a Pulitzer. And it was he who died — far too soon — in early February at age 73. We'll miss you, Jim.

Five years ago, on a cool September evening, Miami Police stopped Sisser while he was driving in Coconut Grove with a known drug dealer in the passenger's seat. The cops found four bags of crack cocaine and a homemade glass pipe used to smoke the drug. Sisser was charged with third-degree felony coke possession and possession of drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor. At the time, he was the most powerful lobbyist at the Miami-Dade School Board. Following his arrest, he entered a 30-day detoxification program in Tucson. It wasn't easy after his return. During a court appearance in January 2004, Sisser admitted he would not pass a drug test because he had used cocaine. But he overcame his addiction and dedicated part of his life to helping other people like him. In 2006, he hosted a luncheon to benefit Miami-Dade's "Friends of Drug Court." The invitation described him as a "Proud Graduate of Drug Court." With then-Gov. Jeb Bush, Sisser raised tens of thousands of dollars for the program. He's also bounced back in the political landscape, recently holding fundraisers to re-elect Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Klein.

As the world seems to be fast tumbling toward apocalypse (global warming, World War III, economic meltdown), we see signs of hope in the most unlikely places. Take for instance local charity Miracles in Action. It was started by a middle-age American Airlines flight attendant, Penny Rambacher, who was on a layover in Quito, Ecuador, in 1999 when she came face to face with a "dumpster child" in the city's outskirts. Witnessing such extreme poverty immediately made her take action. Thus Miracles in Action was born. With only $20,000, Miracles has helped build in rural, impoverished areas of Guatemala approximately 20 schools serving about 300 to 350 students, most of indigenous Mayan descent. The organization's motto is "Help Poor People Help Themselves." The results: increased literacy rates, higher life expectancy, better hygiene, and, most important, happier and safer communities. So while $20,000 will get you a modest Honda Civic, it could also save lives.