In 1999, The Miami Herald recognized Hendricks as the No. 1 NFL player ever to hail from South Florida, ranking him over 99 others. His name is immortalized at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, which hosts dozens of high school football games each year.

Hendricks, who lives in Chicago but returns to South Florida for charity events and to visit his mother in Miami Springs, says he was able to achieve success in football because his high school coaches and teachers pushed him to try every sport and every subject before he chose his focus.

"My advice [to students] is for them to broaden themselves in all of their fields," Hendricks said. "Don't just try to excel in one area."

FRANCES COOK

* YEAR WON: 1963 * CATEGORY: Social Sciences * HIGH SCHOOL: South Dade * NOW: Served 32 years with the U.S. Department of State as foreign service officer, consul general and ambassador. Lives in Washington, D.C.

Frances Cook's professional life has been full of firsts -- first U.S. woman to head a diplomatic post in the Middle East, first female ambassador to a Persian Gulf nation and first diplomat younger than 35 to become an ambassador.

Her first first: bringing a Silver Knight award to South Dade High in 1963, the school's first.

"I was just flabbergasted when the school decided to nominate me, and I won," Cook, 61, said from her vacation home in Provence, France. "It was a terrific honor for the school and for me. It was a small, rural school back then. Small and remote."

Now a bustling school with 2,500 students from the Homestead area, South Dade is a different place than when Cook attended.

Cook, who often returns to Homestead to visit her 93-year-old mother, knew from a young age that she was destined for foreign diplomacy. In 7th grade, Cook read a memoir from a former ambassador and fell in love with the job.

"We had to write an essay about what you want to do when you grow up," Cook said. "I thought that was the neatest career you could think of."

It motived Cook to become active in politics. She led a group of Dade County teenagers who supported John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, and she volunteered in community outreach programs.

Cook joined the Foreign Service in 1967 soon after graduating from Mary Washington College. Midway through her precedent-setting career, she received a master's degree from Harvard University. Cook now serves on boards for about 10 businesses and charities.

"The main thing Silver Knights did for me was show there aren't any limits on what you can aspire to," Cook said. "Coming from a rural high school, I dared to dream big after that. I figured, 'If this can happen, maybe other things can happen.' "

JIMMY MORALES

* YEAR WON: 1980 * CATEGORY: General Scholarship * HIGH SCHOOL: Miami Beach Senior High * NOW: Lawyer, former Miami-Dade County commissioner. Lives in Coral Gables.

Among the plaques and trophies that dot Jimmy Morales' Miami law office, his Silver Knight statue attracts the most attention.

"People know exactly what it is without having to read it," Morales said.

The 1980 general scholarship winner excelled academ -ically at Miami Beach Senior High, but what made him stand out among his peers were the community-service projects he initiated.

Morales paired high school students with senior citizens in his adopt-a- grandparent program, and he tutored Haitian immigrants at Miami Edison High to help them adjust to their new lives in South Florida.

Something clicked for Morales during those front-line experiences with the community. He realized he had a knack for helping others.

Winning the Silver Knight award cemented in his brain that standing up for others was what he wanted to do as a career.

"That pushed me along the path of wanting to stay in the field of public service," said Morales, 45, who served the communities of Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, Miami, Pinecrest and South Miami in his eight years as a county commissioner.

Now in private law practice, part of his duties include serving as Marathon's city attorney. Morales earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.

Like several other former winners, Morales also has served as a Silver Knight judge. Year after year, he says he is "blown away" by the achievements of the nominees.

"People complain about every generation, but when you go to an event like Silver Knights . . . it gives you hope that each generation is producing a group of young people who still care about other people in their community," he said.

Winning a Silver Knight is about more than an extra line on a college application, Morales said.

"This is the first step toward a lifetime of being good at what you do."