Illinois jobless rate falls to 8.7%

Illinois' unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in November. (Bloomberg file photo / December 20, 2012)

Associated Press

12:30 p.m. CST, December 20, 2012

Illinois' unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in November as the economy added 16,400 jobs.

Preliminary data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security indicate the largest monthly job gain of the year. There still are 574,600 Illinoisans out of work. The rate does not reflect unemployed people who've quit looking for work.

IDES Director Jay Rowell says November's job growth is encouraging and "reinforces the trend of positive economic momentum."

But he says progress will slow if Congress and the president fail to come to a resolution on the so-called fiscal cliff.

November's seasonally adjusted rate is one-tenth of a percentage point lower than in October and 1.1 percentage points lower than November 2011.

Most job gains last month were in professional and business services and manufacturing.

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Obama wants gun policy recommendations in a month

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama directed a Cabinet group on Wednesday to give him recommendations by next month on ways to tighten the regulation of guns in the wake of the Connecticut massacre of schoolchildren.

Responding to national outrage over Friday's killing of 20 children, aged 6 and 7, Obama held a White House news conference to announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an effort to craft policies to crack down on gun violence.

Obama said he believed Americans would support the reinstatement of a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips, and a law requiring background checks on buyers before all gun purchases, which would close a loophole that allows sales at open-air gun shows without such background checks.

Saying gun control cannot be the only solution to the problem, Obama expressed support for making it easier for Americans to get access to mental health care - "at least as easy as access to a gun."

Under pressure from fellow Democrats to act, Obama insisted the guns issue would not be ignored this time. Previous appeals for more gun regulation have died even as mass shootings have continued.

With Biden at his side, Obama said the group would give him proposals that he could outline in his State of the Union speech in late January. Cabinet members involved include Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

"This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now," Obama said.

The Newtown, Connecticut, shootings of so many schoolchildren by a 20-year-old man have shocked Americans in ways that previous mass shootings have not. The gunman's mother and six adults at the school were also killed before the gunman shot himself.

Some previously adamant opponents of increased gun control have expressed a willingness to consider more regulation. Even the powerful National Rifle Association, the lobby group that has sought time and again to stymie gun legislation, said this week that it would be prepared to offer meaningful contributions to ensure there is no repeat of Newtown.

WAKE-UP CALL

Obama himself has done little to rein in America's gun culture in his four years in office. His administration has to a certain extent expanded gun rights by permitting the carrying of firearms in national parks.

Asked why he has been a no-show on the subject until now, Obama defended himself, saying he has been dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I don't think I've been on vacation," he said. The Newtown massacre, he said, "should be a wake-up call for all of us."

Whatever steps Obama's task force comes up with are likely to face some criticism because many Republicans see the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms as sacrosanct.

"What we're looking for here is a thoughtful approach that says we can preserve our Second Amendment, we can make sure that responsible gun owners are able to carry out their activities, but that we're gonna actually be serious about the safety side of this," Obama said.

Obama has tapped Biden to lead other high-profile initiatives, including efforts on a deficit-reduction compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011.

U.S. Representative Ron Barber, who was wounded in a 2011 Arizona shooting that targeted his predecessor, Gabrielle Giffords, welcomed the effort and echoed other Democratic lawmakers' calls to ban military-grade guns.

"We cannot go on blithely believing that we can solve this problem in other ways. We have to look at the weaponry used and we have to look at the people who use it and we have to do something about both," Barber said at a news conference earlier at the Capitol.

Friday's massacre was the fourth shooting rampage to claim multiple lives in the United States this year.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Steve Holland; editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Kodak in $525 million patent deal, eyes bankruptcy end

(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co agreed to sell its digital imaging patents for about $525 million, a key step to bringing the photography pioneer out of bankruptcy in the first half of 2013.

The deal for the 1,100 patents allows Kodak to fulfill a condition for securing $830 million in financing.

The patent deal was reached with a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp, and which includes some of the world's biggest technology companies, which will license or acquire the patents.

Those companies are Adobe Systems Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Fujifilm, Google Inc, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Microsoft Corp, Research In Motion Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Shutterfly Inc, according to court documents.

Kodak still must sell its personalized and document-imaging businesses as part of the financing package, and also has to resolve its UK pension obligation.

Kodak said the patent deal puts it on a path to emerge from Chapter 11 in the first half of 2013.

"Our progress has accelerated over the past several weeks as we prepare to emerge as a strong, sustainable company," said Antonio Perez, chairman and chief executive of the Rochester, New York-based company.

The patent portfolio was expected to be a major asset for Kodak when it filed for bankruptcy in January. An outside firm had estimated the patents could be worth as much as $2.6 billion.

Kodak's patents hit the market as intellectual property values have soared and technology companies have plowed money into patent-related litigation.

For example, last year Nortel Networks sold 6,000 wireless patents in a bankruptcy auction for $4.5 billion and earlier this year Google spent $12.5 billion for patent-rich Motorola Mobility.

But Kodak's patent auction dragged on beyond the initial expectation that it would be wrapped up in August. One patent specialist blamed those early, overly optimistic valuations, which he said encouraged Kodak's team to set their sights too high.

"Unfortunately (Kodak management) was misled into thinking it was worth billions of dollars and it wasn't," said Alex Poltorak, chairman of General Patent Corp, a patent licensing firm. "I think they sold them at a very good price."

He said after Google acquired Motorola, the search engine company no longer needed patents at any price, deflating the intellectual property market.

Kodak traces its roots to the 19th century and invented the handheld camera. But it has been unable to successfully shift to digital imaging.

It will likely be a different company when it exits bankruptcy, out of the consumer business and focused instead on providing products and services to the commercial imaging market.

The patent sale is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

The Kodak bankruptcy case is in Re: Eastman Kodak Co. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-10202.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Nick Zieminski,; John Wallace and Peter Galloway)

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Cruz: Meeting Pinto family was "toughest by far"

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — For much of his hour-long visit with the family of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Connecticut school shootings, Victor Cruz talked about football, life and young Jack, the child who idolized him.

Tears were shed. Feelings were shared. Cleats and gloves worn by Cruz to honor Jack Pinto at Sunday's game against Atlanta were given to his family.

The New York Giants wide receiver somberly recounted Wednesday his meeting with Pinto's parents and brother in Newtown, Conn.

He struggled in his retelling only when asked about the family's decision to bury the child in the receiver's No. 80 Giants jersey. The father of an infant girl, Cruz stopped for a moment, and his eyes became watery.

"You never go through some circumstances like this and circumstances where a kid faces or a family faces something of this magnitude at their school," Cruz said. "This definitely was the toughest by far."

Jack Pinto was buried on Monday and Cruz telephoned the family to ask whether he could visit them Tuesday.

The family disclosed after Friday's massacre that Cruz was Jack's favorite player. The boy was one of 20 first-graders and six adults killed in the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Cruz drove to Newtown with his girlfriend, Elaina Watley, and their daughter, Kennedy.

"I had no expectations. I was a little nervous," Cruz said. "I just didn't know how I was going to be received. You never know when they are going through something like that. You never know how it is going to go down."

Seeing the family outside the home along with some local children made Cruz feel better.

"They were still pretty emotional, crying and stuff like that," Cruz said. "I saw how affected they were by just my presence alone. I got out and gave them the cleats and the gloves and they appreciated it. The older brother (Ben) was still emotional, so I gave them to him."

Cruz had written "Jack Pinto, My Hero" and "R.I.P. Jack Pinto" on his cleats before the Giants' loss to the Falcons Sunday in Atlanta.

The 26-year-old player best known for his salsa dances after touchdowns, signed autographs for the children before heading inside.

"I didn't want to go in there and make a speech," Cruz said. "I just wanted to go and spend some time with them and be someone they could talk to, and be someone they can vent to, talk about how much of a fans they are of the team, or different times they watched the Super Bowl."

Cruz spent that part of the visit sitting in the chair where Jack's father, Dean, sat when he watched the Giants' Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots in February.

It was a day Jack got to see his favorite team win a championship.

"It was just an emotional time," Cruz said. "I spent a little bit of time with them. We got to smile a little bit, which was good for them. It was a time where I just wanted to be a positive voice, a positive light in the tunnel where it can really be negative, so it was a good time. They are a great family and they're really united at this time and it was good to see."

Cruz said it was strange thinking about a child being buried in his jersey. He did not know how to react. Should he thank the family?

"It leaves you kind of blank," Cruz said. "I am definitely honored by it. I am definitely humbled by it, and it's definitely an unfortunate but humbling experience for me."

The visit also gave Cruz time to reflect, especially looking at his daughter.

"Ever since it happened I've kind of been spending more time with her, just cherishing the little moments, the little time you get with her because you never know when that can be taken from you," he said.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin said he was incredibly proud of Cruz for visiting with the Pinto family.

"Hopefully some of their grief might at least temporarily be suspended in being able to embrace Victor Cruz," Coughlin said, adding what he did speaking volumes of what he has inside.

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice said what Cruz did took heart.

"You've got to be able to put yourself in that family's situation to understand at least what they're going through," Rice said in a conference call with the New York media about Sunday's game against the Giants. "That's what it's about. That's something that you don't just say, 'I'm going to do it.' You do it from the heart, from within and what he did was amazing."

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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Review: 'The Impossible' overwhelms with melodrama

Based on the true story of a family swept away by the deadly 2004 tsunami that pummeled Southeast Asia, "The Impossible" is about as subtle as a wall of water.

The depiction of the natural disaster itself, which killed 230,000 people, is visceral and horrifying. Director Juan Antonio Bayona has crafted an event that's impeccable from a production standpoint with its dizzying, seemingly endless sprawl of destruction, a relentless, wet menace full of things that snap and stab and strangle. And Naomi Watts gives a vivid, deeply committed performance as the wife and mother of three young boys who finds the strength to persevere despite desolation and debilitating injuries.

But man, is this thing heavy-handed. Although "The Impossible" sucks you in at the start, it proceeds to pound you over the head after that.

Watts and Ewan McGregor co-star as Maria and Henry, a happily married British couple spending Christmas at a luxury resort in Thailand with their adorable sons, played by Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin and Oaklee Pendergast. (The real-life family whose story inspired the film was Spanish, like the director himself; changing their ethnicity and casting famous people to play them seems like a rather transparent attempt to appeal to a larger audience.)

During a quiet morning by the pool, the first massive wave comes ashore, scattering the family and thousands of strangers across the devastated landscape. "The Impossible" tracks their efforts to survive, reconnect, find medical care and get the hell out of town. Maria and eldest son Lucas have managed to stick together, as have Henry and the youngest boys, Thomas and Simon. But neither group knows that the others are alive. The sense of loneliness and fear that sets in during those first quiet moments after the mayhem has settled are eerie.

Both halves of the family trudge on, though. The near-misses at an overcrowded hospital are just too agonizing to be true, and the uplifting score swells repeatedly in overpowering fashion, urging us to feel, as if we wouldn't know how on our own. Surely, the inherent drama of this story could have stood on its own two feet.

Bayona lingers almost fetishistically on Watts' wounds — the massive gash to the back of her right leg, the slashes beneath her left breast, the cuts over both eyes — then he martyrs her as she lingers near death. Meanwhile, the countless thousands of native people suffer in a blur — literally, they're fleeting images glimpsed from the back of a rumbling pickup truck on a dirt road. Either that or they're elderly, toothless saints spouting gibberish, but they never feel like real people who've just endured the devastation of the only home they've ever known.

"The Impossible," a Summit Entertainment release, is rated PG-13 for intense, realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images, and brief nudity. Running time: 107 minutes. Two stars out of four.

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definition for PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Boehner: Blame tax hikes on Obama

US Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks on the "fiscal cliff" during press conference Wednesday. (Reuters / December 19, 2012)

Reuters

1:37 p.m. CST, December 19, 2012

President Barack Obama will be responsible for taxes rising on Americans if he does not "get serious" about a balanced deficit reduction plan or demand Senate passage of a Republican bill to prevent tax increases on all income below $1 million, House Speaker John Boehner charged on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American," Boehner said in a short on-camera statement.

"Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."

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Chicago prison inmates used bedsheets to escape: official

The scene at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and in Tinley Park, where authorities were searching for two escaped prisoners on Dec. 18, 2012. (Zbigniew Bzdak & Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune)

Two convicted bank robbers escaped from the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop this morning by tying bedsheets together and shimmying down at least 15 stories to the ground below, officials say.

Joseph "Jose" Banks and Kenneth Conley were somehow able to climb out of the narrow slit of a window in the cell they shared and make their way down the south face of the federal jail, the spokesman said.

“A rope was fashioned out of bedsheets,’’ said a spokesman for the MCC. “I would imagine that they saved them up."

Conley and Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit who was convicted just last week, were discovered missing from their cell at the federal jail at 71 W. Van Buren St. around  8:45 a.m., according to Central District Police Sgt. Michael Lazzaro. The inmates were last checked at 5 a.m., he said.

The makeshift rope could be seen dangling along the south side of the MCC.

The MCC spokesman declined to say whether any guards were under investigation or whether anything was smuggled into them or how the narrow cell window was widened.

Hours after the escape, SWAT teams forced their way into a Tinley Park house where a relative of Conley is believed to live. But no one was found inside, and FBI officials said they believe Conley and Banks had been there hours earlier.

The SWAT officers left the home after about 20 minutes and walked down the street with dogs as neighbors followed, taking pictures with their phones. About two blocks down, the officers searched the Metra stop.

A woman who answered at the home of a relative of Conley said it was "very upsetting for everyone" and declined further comment.

Banks’ cousin, Theresa Ann Banks, pleaded for Banks to turn himself in.

“I just don’t want to see him get hurt or killed,” she said with a shaky voice. “(The family) is trying to hold themselves together. We just have to have faith in God and hope everything goes right.”

Theresa Ann Banks said she received a call about the escape from Banks' father, who heard about it on the news.

When Joseph Banks was arrested in 2008, Theresa Ann Banks said she visited him whenever she had a chance. “When I went to see him, he was calm, he was humble, he was happy to see me,” she said. “He was very positive every time I would go.”

Banks was described as black, 37, 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 160 pounds. Conley is white, 38, 6 feet and 185 pounds.

Banks, known as the Second-Hand Bandit, was convicted last Thursday of two bank robberies and two attempted holdups. He made off with a nearly $600,000 in the heists, and authorities say $500,000 is still unaccounted for.

Banks was an aspiring clothing designer who claimed to be a "sovereign citizen" who could not be tried in a federal court. He acted as his own attorney and had to be restrained during his trial.

During closing arguments, Banks repeatedly interrupted Assistant U.S. Attorney Renato Mariotti, commenting on the evidence and suggesting photo lineups were rigged. Mariotti raised his voice over the interruptions to remind the jury of the evidence at trial, including $40,000 found in Banks' safe deposit box as well as a fake beard he wore in the robberies.

Security footage played for jurors showed Banks jumping bank counters and wielding a handgun as he ordered employees to open vaults and ATMs at the banks. In one video, a bank worker was shown hyperventilating on the floor of a cash room, clutching his chest and neck.

One day during his trial, Banks had to be restrained to keep him from leaving the courtroom. He had fired his attorneys, so Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer told him he had to stay in court.

Banks eventually agreed to sit still. As the security staff wheeled him into a room to release him from the chair, he called out: "I feel like I'm Hannibal Lecter or something."

Security was beefed up when the jury reached its decision, with 10 deputy U.S. marshals in the courtroom when the guilty verdict was read.

"I'll be seeking retribution as well as damages," he told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer.

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Samsung drops attempt to ban Apple sales in Europe

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Korea's Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said it would drop law suits aimed at banning the sale of Apple Inc. products in Europe just a day after scoring a victory in a battle in the United States with the maker of iPhones.

Samsung and Apple, the world's top two smartphone makers, have been locked in patent disputes in at least 10 countries over the last 18 months since Apple sued Samsung, saying the Korean firm copied its best-selling iPhone and iPad.

On Tuesday, Samsung said it was dropping an attempt to stop the sale of some Apple products in Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the Netherlands, though it did not say it would halt its court battle for compensation.

"Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court," the company said in a statement.

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment on Samsung's decision.

The decision comes a day after a judge rejected Apple Inc's request for a ban on the sale of Samsung Electronics' smartphones in the United States.

In August, Apple was awarded $1.05 billion in damages after a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. The Samsung products run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.

In January, the European Commission opened an investigation into whether Samsung Electronics has distorted competition in the European mobile device market, breaking EU antitrust rules.

(Reporting by Simon Johnson, additional reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Louise Heavens)

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A&M's Johnny Football is AP's Player of the Year

Johnny Manziel ran for almost 1,700 yards and 30 touchdowns as a dual-threat quarterback his senior year of high school at Kerrville Tivy.

Who would have thought he'd be even more impressive at Texas A&M when pitted against the defenses of the Southeastern Conference?

On Tuesday, Manziel picked up another major award for his spectacular debut season. He was voted The Associated Press Player of the Year. As with the Heisman Trophy and Davey O'Brien Award that Manziel already won, the QB nicknamed Johnny Football is the first freshman to collect the AP award.

Manziel's 31 votes were more than twice that of second place finisher Manti Te'o, Notre Dame's start linebacker. He is the third straight Heisman-winning quarterback to receive the honor, following Robert Griffin III and Cam Newton.

Manziel erased initial doubts about his ability when he ran for 60 yards and a score in his first game against Florida.

"I knew I could run the ball, I did it a lot in high school," Manziel said in an interview with the AP. "It is just something that you don't get a chance to see in the spring. Quarterbacks aren't live in the spring. You don't get to tackle. You don't get to evade some of the sacks that you would in normal game situations. So I feel like when I was able to avoid getting tackled, it opened some people's eyes a little bit more."

The 6-foot-1 Manziel threw for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and ran for 1,181 yards and 19 more scores to help the Aggies win 10 games for the first time since 1998 — and in their inaugural SEC year, too.

Ryan Tannehill, Manziel's predecessor now with the Dolphins after being drafted eighth overall this season, saw promise from the young quarterback last year when he was redshirted. But even he is surprised at how quickly things came together for Manziel.

"It's pretty wild. I always thought he had that playmaking ability, that something special where if somebody came free, he can make something exciting happen," Tannehill said. "I wasn't really sure if, I don't think anyone was sure if he was going to be able to carry that throughout an SEC season, and he's shocked the world and he did it."

After Manziel sat out as a redshirt in 2011, Texas A&M's scheduled season-opener against Louisiana Tech this year was postponed because of Hurricane Isaac. That left him to get his first taste of live defense in almost two years against Florida.

He responded well, helping the Aggies race to a 17-7 lead early using both his arm and his feet. The Gators shut down Manziel and A&M's offense in the second half and Texas A&M lost 20-17.

But Manziel's performance was enough for Texas A&M's coaching staff to realize that his scrambling ability was going to be a big part of what the Aggies could do this season.

"The first half really showed that I was a little bit more mobile than we had seen throughout the spring," Manziel said. "Me and (then-offensive coordinator) Kliff Kingsbury sat down and really said: 'Hey we can do some things with my feet as well as throwing the ball.' And it added a little bit of a new dimension."

Manziel knew that the biggest adjustment from playing in high school to college would be the speed of the game. Exactly how quick players in the SEC were was still a jolt to the quarterback.

"The whole first drive I was just seeing how fast they really flew to the ball and I felt like they just moved a whole lot faster," he said of the Florida game. "It was different than what I was used to, different than what I was used to in high school. So it was just having to learn quick and adjust on the fly."

He did just that and started piling up highlight reel material by deftly avoiding would-be tacklers to help the Aggies run off five consecutive wins after that.

His storybook ride hit a roadblock when he threw a season-high three interceptions in a 24-19 loss to LSU. But Manziel used it as a learning experience, taking to heart some advice he received from Kingsbury.

"He just told me to have a plan every time, before every snap," Manziel said. "Make sure you have a plan on what you want to do and where you want to go with the ball."

"I feel like as the year went on, I just learned the offense more and knew exactly where I wanted to go, instead of maybe evading the blitz and just taking off running for the first down instead of hitting a hot route or throwing it underneath to an open guy and doing things a lot simpler and cleaner."

The Aggies and Manziel rebounded from the loss to LSU by winning their last five games, highlighted by their stunning 29-24 upset of top-ranked Alabama on Nov. 10.

By the time Manziel wrapped up a 253-yard passing and 92-yard rushing performance to lead Texas A&M to the victory in Tuscaloosa, you could hardly call him a freshman anymore.

"You keep growing and growing every week," he said. "By the time I played Alabama I had a much better grasp of the game than I did in the first one."

The 4,600 yards of total offense Manziel gained in 12 games broke the SEC record for total yards in a season. The record was previously held by 2010 Heisman winner Newton, who needed 14 games to pile up 4,327 yards. The output also made him the first freshman, first player in the SEC and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season.

Manziel, who turned 20 two days before taking home the Heisman, has been so busy he hasn't had a second to step back and digest the historical significance of his accomplishments this season.

He's far more concerned with helping the Aggies extend their winning streak to six games with a win over Oklahoma on Jan. 4 in the Cotton Bowl.

"I think it will happen after the bowl game and after the season is completely over," he said. "I'm just ready for it to die down a little bit and get back into a practice routine where we get better and hopefully do what we want to do in the bowl game."

He'll have to do it without his mentor Kingsbury, who left A&M last week to become coach at Texas Tech, where he starred at quarterback not that long ago. Manziel said is happy Kingsbury got to return to his alma matter, but is still adjusting to the idea of playing without him.

"I'm the happiest guy on the face of the earth for him," Manziel said, speaking from California where he appeared on the "Tonight Show" Monday evening. "I think he deserves it with how hard he's worked this year to get us where we were. It's bittersweet though, because I'd like him to be here for the entire time that I'm here."

Manziel is eager to get back on the field for the Cotton Bowl and is focused on helping the offense pick up where it left off in the regular-season finale.

"Even though Kliff Kingsbury's not here anymore, we just need to continue to get better and do what we do," Manziel said. "Push tempo, go fast and be the high-flying offense that we have been all year."

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AP Sports Writer Steven Wine contributed to this story from Miami.

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