Palin the Fearless

But Chuck has seen his daughter handle herself in other perilous situations and come out all right. A few years ago, he watched her pilot husband Todd Palin's commercial fishing boat in a storm. Todd was working at his oil-field job on the North Slope, and Palin and her father had been fishing on Bristol Bay. "It was the toughest work I've ever done, and it wasn't only hard, it was dangerous," Chuck says. At the end of the run, they had to get the boat on a trailer amid crashing surf. As cold, metallic-sheened waves tossed the trawler around, Chuck quailed.

...The summer Palin was 12, she asked to be baptized at Bible camp and was dipped in the frigid waters of Beaver Lake. According to Heather's account of their conversion, "I vividly recall at about 10 years old, looking out at Alaska's beautiful scenery and wondering how anyone could not admit there was a God who created it."

...Nor did anyone question Title IX, the 1972 law that mandated equal opportunity for women in public education. It's the rare feminist issue for which Palin is an unambiguous cheerleader. "I'll tell you, I'm a product of Title IX in our schools," she says on the stump. "Equal education and equal opportunities in sports really helped propel me into, I guess into the position that I'm in today."

With about 30 seconds left, Palin was fouled. She went to the free-throw line. If she missed, Service would get the ball with a chance to cut Wasilla's lead to just two points. If she made the shot, her team would be up five -- making it a three-possession game. She licked her fingertips, dribbled the ball a time or two, and knocked down the shot. "That iced it," Teeguarden says. "At that point we exhaled." Wasilla won, 58-53.

...Says Teeguarden: "The idea of being in awe of people just isn't in her nature." Ketchum adds, grinning: "She likes an opponent."