Coach Invites Homeless Player to Live with His Family.
HOWELL: In the U.S. state of North Carolina, a high school football coach and his family have a great deal to celebrate over the holiday season. It was just this week Coach Sam Greiner's team won its first state championship title in 64 years. And the star player, a student who became part of the coach's family. Our Dianne Gallagher has their remarkable story.</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A senior quarterback with a 95- yard touchdown run to win the state championship game, leading a team that, just two years ago, had a 1-10 record to their first state title in more than 60 years.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Champions!</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): His story, impressive. But this is a story of about much more than football. This is a story about a coach, a quarterback and a little but loaded question that changed their lives. Late summer 2015, Harding University High School, Charlotte, North Carolina. Sam Greiner, a first year head coach, tasked with turning around the Rams' abysmal underfunded program and breaking some bad news to sophomore Braheam Murphy.</s>SAM GREINER, HUHS FOOTBALL COACH: The athletic director comes to me and says, oh, yes, by the way, Braheam Murphy and some other guys are not eligible. I was like, Braheam is not eligible? Like I was like blown away because he's so smart.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): But he didn't have the grades to play.</s>BRAHEAM MURPHY, STUDENT FOOTBALL STAR: When he told me that, I didn't show any emotion but once I got home, I just like cried for like two days straight.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): Home: a complicated word in Braheam's life back then.</s>MURPHY: I had to be on my own at times. And sometimes, I stayed at my friends' house. Me and my sister stayed at my friend's house. We were going back and forth.</s>GALLAGHER: You were homeless?</s>MURPHY: Yes, basically. I wasn't in a stable home.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): When he was 5 years old, Braheam lost his mother to a brain aneurysm.</s>MURPHY: And after that, it was just like everything went downhill. My dad loves me and everything but we were just going through problems.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): Coach Greiner started to notice that when he dropped Braheam off at home, it was never the same place twice.</s>SAM GREINER: Eventually he just opened up to me and he was like, you know, I have to stay with my sister from place to place. I didn't know what to do at times. So I go into my office and I started thinking, something's tugging at my heart.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): Now Sam Greiner has spent years talking faith, family and football. So he called his wife, Connie. It was time to practice what he preached.</s>CONNIE GREINER, SAM'S WIFE: So he stayed with us. We had him here a couple times with him. I mean, I fell until love.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): And their daughters, Charli and Journi, just 2 and 3 years old at the time, absolutely smitten with a new big brother. So when it came down to that little life-changing question...</s>SAM GREINER: He was like, is it OK if I just stay here with you guys for a little bit? I said Braheam, you just stay as long as you want. And two years later...</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): It was an adjustment but it worked.</s>MURPHY: I just felt that when I had someone caring for me, I felt like it made me do better in school and it made me want to do better in life.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): His grades shot up, straight As. Braheam said in finding a family, he also found faith.</s>MURPHY: That's how I met God. That's a main turn in my life also.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): And football, well, that fell into place. But the story is far from finished. Braheam will leave for college in the summer. He earned a scholarship to the United States Military Academy at West Point.</s>MURPHY: I shed some tears because Connie going to make me -- they're going to make me proud.</s>CONNIE GREINER: Oh, my gosh.</s>SAM GREINER: What are you going to tell Braheam on graduation day?</s>CONNIE GREINER: That I love him, that I couldn't be more proud of him.</s>SAM GREINER: He's doing a "family tree changer." I never had an opportunity to go to West Point. He's better than me. Connie is trying to go to college, trying now to do her career in order. And one day, we'll probably be working for our own son.</s>GALLAGHER (voice-over): In Charlotte, North Carolina, Dianne Gallagher, CNN.</s>HOWELL: A good story to end this hour. And thank you for being with us for CNN NEWSROOM. I'm George Howell at the CNN Center in Atlanta. For our viewers in the United States, "NEW DAY" is next. For our viewers around the world, "AMANPOUR" is up for you after the break. And I'll be back in an hour with more on the breaking news we're following in the Philippines, the deadly mudslides that killed at least 75 people. This is CNN, the world's news leader.