As he lay on a bed in the emergency room at Greater Southeast Hospital, waiting for his mother to arrive, waiting for doctors to tell him whether he would recover from the wound about six inches below his armpit, Edwards knew he needed more than soap and water to clean his hands.

He realized he'd had enough. Enough of stealing cars. Enough of robbing other kids for dinner money. Enough of street fights over petty neighborhood beefs. Enough of wasting days in a marijuana haze.

"That night, I told myself that I wanted something different," said Edwards, a high school freshman at Ballou at the time of the Feb. 10, 2008, shooting. "I was tired of this life. Nobody was giving me anything. I had to get it myself."

Three years later, the  6-foot, 170-pound Edwards is coming off a football season that earned him second-team  All-Met honors as quarterback at Ballou, and Friday night, he will be honored at the Pigskin Club of Washington's 73rd annual awards dinner as one of the area's top players.