USC sprinter Nellum in top form after shooting

(Eds: APNewsNow. Will be updated. With AP Photos.)

Some days during practice, Bryshon Nellum literally crawled across the finish line as the pain from bullet fragments touching on nerves in his legs screamed with each passing meter. He fought back tears right there on the track.

Yet there he was, pushing himself, running again. Just as he vowed to do. Even when teammate and longtime friend Joey Hughes insisted it would be more than fine to stop, to give his body and his mind a break.

Doctors told the Southern California sprinter he might never return to competition for the Trojans after being shot in the legs as he left a restaurant near campus following a Halloween party in 2008. The highly touted 19-year-old took a bullet to each thigh and another in the left hamstring.