Tonight, show them the money. Were still stunned by whats happened. Americas power ball winners, now 293 million richer. I called my husband, i said i think im having a heart attack. Can they ever be the same . I will talk to their closest friends. Also, back on the campaign trail. We can solve these problems. With 32 days to go, will you be paying higher taxes . My political allstars weigh in on battleground america. And against all odds, after sandusky, penn states incredible comeback. My exclusive interview with the coach of the year. And a reunion with a dear old friend whose bark is as bad as her bite. Sharon osbourne. Her incredible year of highs and lows and how shes rebuilding her life after facing a Terrible Health prognosis. I couldnt see myself going through chemoagain. This is piers morgan tonight. Good evening. Who ever thinks the American Dream is dead or dying should meet mark and cindy hill, a missouri couple who live a very ordinary life. At least thats what they were doing until wednesday and a little thing called power ball came along. Sure, the odds were 1 in 175 million, but like everybody else in america, pretty much everyone else, they bought a ticket. Wouldnt you know it, they won. Sharing the jackpot with another lucky winner. Today, the hills are holding a check in their hands for a cool 293 million. Not surprisingly, they are in a state of shock. While we wait for them to absorb whats happened, i talked to two people who know them better than most. Joining me now, sandra and walt stubbs, good Close Friends of power ball winners, mark and cindy hill. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you. What an amazing story. Tell me about these friends of yours who have suddenly gone from regular struggling American Family to fabulously rich. Well, mark and cindy went to high school with us, and you know, just an amazing story. Just great people. Salt of the earth. They bought the ticket and one day they were struggling like everybody else and now theyre millionaires. Whats amazing is that mark was laid off in 2010 from work, cindy then took time off work to care for the baby they adopted from china, and they were hoping to adopt another child, but finances were tight and so on. Now of course they can afford to do all this. But they seem very decent, i say ordinary, i dont mean ordinary in any kind of negative way, i just mean regular americans. Yes. They are very grounded. They have strong bonds with their family. They really enjoy their family. They will definitely take care of their family now. Lets play a little clip, this is of cindy, who bought the ticket, at the press conference earlier. I didnt have my glasses and i was thinking is that the right numbers, is that the right numbers . And i was shaking and i called my husband, i said i think im having a heart attack, god blessed us with this. And for some reason, he put it in our hands. I think to make sure that it goes to the right things. And but we were blessed before we ever won this. How do you guys find out about this, walt . Since were pretty familiar in the community, several people in the community started texting us about, oh, 9 00 that morning, and you know, of course, there are no secrets in a small town so everybody was pretty much calling around saying hey, he won, and mark put it on his facebook which i was totally amazed that he did that. So everybody pretty much knew. Its a lovely story. Dearborn in missouri is a small place. As you say, Everybody Knows each other. Cindy and mark have three grownup sons, jason, cody and jared and a 6yearold adopted daughter, jaden, from china. It really is a wonderful preholiday story, isnt it . Yes. It is. Its just a blessing. They couldnt have had a better couple to get it because they will definitely take care of the family but they are also really involved in the community. Were really happy for them. Do you know how they are going to spend the money, sandra . Have they given any indication to you . All they said today was that they were definitely going to take care of their family and their grandchildren and set up College Funds for them, and then they had some charities they are really into the adoption and so i know that they were possibly thinking about getting another child, and making sure that the adoption community, you know, gets some of their money. Walt, did you buy tickets yourselves for this powerball . We did. We did. We were watching but you know what, if we cant win, were happy that theyre the ones that won. Yes. If i bought a ticket and my best mates won, a little part of me would be like oh, god, why not me . You know what, i think that its important. Mark and cindy are great people, i think that they will do a good job taking care of this money and theyre just special people. Sorry we didnt win but glad they did. Very glad. Whats going to happen to marks job now with all this . Hes not going back to work. Cindy ill bet he isnt. Cindy isnt going to an interview. Cindy had an interview scheduled for today and she did not go to that, either. No, i would imagine work is the last thing on their minds. But its a great story. Im very thrilled for your friends. The mere fact youre also happy for them says it all. They are obviously lovely people and exactly the kind of people you hope win Something Like the powerball. So thank you for joining me. Please pass on my very sincere congratulations to them and if they want to come on this show and talk about it, i would love to see them. Well let them know. Thank you. Thanks. Now to another long shot winner. The year of enormous scandal and shame for penn state and its football team. Tonight, an extraordinary story of hope and healing. Against the odds, the Nittany Lions and its head coach, bill obrien, led to an incredible 84 season. Thats not all. He was just named big ten coach of the year. Coach bill obrien joins me now for an exclusive interview. Coach obrien, welcome to you. Hey, piers, how are you doing . Thanks for having me on tonight. Youve had this extraordinary run which really nobody was expecting. It started obviously amid extremely difficult circumstances. When you took over from the legendary joe paterno with all the shame and scandal that had befallen penn state, be honest with me, what was really going through your mind . Well, i knew that it was going to be a difficult challenge and so the first thing i tried to do was put together a great Coaching Staff and i think thats what weve done here. Then obviously, we spent a lot of time with the players and we talked to the players about moving forward and what this university was all about, which was a great chance to get a fantastic education and play good football, and so we werent here then, so we knew that this was a chance for us as a new football Coaching Staff to help these kids and help this Athletic Department and this University Move forward. To put it in perspective, lets remind people of the sanctions that were laid down after the scandal. A 60 million fine, a fouryear bowl ban, all wins vacated, scholarships cut for four years. On the back of that, 15 players left, 31 fourth and fifth year seniors stayed. How did you persuade the ones who stayed to stay . Because clearly, it wasnt going to be to their footballing advantage necessarily. Right. You know, it was in the summertime when the sanctions came out and right away, we had a team meeting that day, and we talked about a lot of Different Things but we talked about the commitment that they had made to each other and the commitment that they had made to the Football Program and to the university. And that there was still the education here and the ability to receive a world renowned degree. That wasnt changing. They were going to be able to play football in front of 100,000 fans. That wasnt changing. And they knew at the end of the day that they were going to be able to play a lot of football in a great conference on tv and so that was something that they knew in their minds was not changed. So at the end of the day, we had a lot of guys that chose to stay with us. We had a series of Team Meetings after that leading up to Training Camp and we had a fantastic senior class that helped keep it all together. You lost the first two games of the season. I would imagine your heart was right in your mouth at that point. But since then, incredible statistics. 8 for 4 overall season, 6 for 2 big ten record. You were named big ten coach of the year by the media and fellow coaches. You were the first penn state first year coach to win eight games in 126 years of the program, and many of the players received Big Ten Honors as well. A quite incredible array of honors given where you started from. Well, i think it was a difficult beginning. The guys were learning a new system on offense and defense and still a lot of the things that we were doing football wise here were different than what they had done in the past and there were growing pains early in the season. I think the guys were frustrated because we all knew that we had the makings of a good football team. I will never forget the monday after the virginia game where we came back to work, our guys really practiced hard that day and we knew then as a Coaching Staff we had a resilient bunch of guys that were eventually not going to be denied to win some games. We ended up beating navy that week and we got on a little bit of a roll which was good, and we ended up 84 like you said, and it was a good start to this new era of penn state football. How have you dealt with the obvious which is the difficulty i guess in rebuilding trust with fans, with parents in particular, of boys now playing at penn state after the appalling crimes of Jerry Sandusky . How have you dealt with that, how have you talked to your players about that and indeed, to the parents . How have you reassured everybody that theres a whole new world now at penn state and they dont have to worry about it . Well, i believe that we have great communication with our players, number one. We talk to our players all the time. We have good communication with the parents of our players. I think they feel good about the direction of the Football Program. One of the things that weve done here, piers, i believe, is weve helped move the community forward. Theres many things that we do in the community that help the State College community but probably number one is as we move forward, is going to make sure we do our part to put an end to child abuse. We work with the Pennsylvania Coalition against rape and thats something that is a partnership that will continue as long as im here. So i think our guys are a little bit wise beyond their years. They understand the reason that were in the position that were in because of the sanctions that came down. They know why those sanctions came down and its a little bit more than football to these guys. They understand that. Theyre going to do their part in the community and thats what were trying to do, in addition to going to class and playing good football. What are your thoughts personally towards joe paterno and indeed, towards Jerry Sandusky . Well, you know, ill start with coach paterno. You know, obviously you look at the body of work and the body of work that he had here as the football coach was tremendous. He graduated 90 of his players and he won a lot of Football Games here. I think that, you know, im just a football coach so im not here to judge anybodys legacy. All i will tell you is that its my job to move this Football Program forward and one of the reasons and one of the ways that we move it forward is by making sure that we graduate our players and that we play good football on saturdays. As far as Jerry Sandusky goes, you know, hes in jail and hes paying for his crimes and you know, weve moved forward as a university and were looking forward to the future. Well, you certainly have moved forward, coach obrien. Its been an astonishing transformation. I congratulate you personally on the achievements youve had and wish you continued good success. Thank you for joining me. Thank you, piers. Coming next, battleground america and the fight over your looming tax bill. Okay, now heres our holiday gift list. Aww, not the mall. Well, ill do the shopping. If you do the shipping. Shippings a hassle. Ill go to the mall. Hey. Hi. Yknow, holiday shippings easy with Priority Mail flat rate boxes from the postal service. If it fits, it ships anywhere in the country for a low flat rate. Yeah, i know. Oh, youre good. [ laughing ] good luck [ male announcer ] Priority Mail flat rate boxes. Online pricing starts at 5. 15. Only from the postal service. To tell real people about our new 15 under 15 menu. Oh my goodness oh my gosh, this looks amazing [ male announcer ] our new maine stays 15 entrees under 15, seafood, chicken and more oo the tilapia with roasted vegetables im actually looking at the wood grilled chicken with portobello wine sauce. 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Only citi price rewind automatically searches for the lowest price. And if it finds one, you get refunded the difference. Just use your citi card and register your purchase online. Have a super sparkly day ok. [ male announcer ] now all you need is a magic carriage. Citi price rewind. Buy now. Save later. If congress does nothing, every family in america will see their income taxes automatically go up on january 1st. Im assuming that doesnt sound too good to you. Thats sort of like the lump of coal you get for christmas. Thats a scrooge christmas. President obama in a factory outside philadelphia today, pushing his financial plan. Make no mistake, its all about your tax bills and if washington can make a deal before you start paying more. With me is democratic strategist marjorie cliften and gerri jacobus. Welcome to you both. Listening to john boehner today and the president , its pretty clear theres no deal anywhere near being settled here. I dont know about you, im just getting really bored with it. Why dont they just get round a table and get it done . Let me start with you gerri. I think the president going to pennsylvania to the tinker toy plant on a Campaign Stop essentially is probably not going to go over as well as he thinks it does, particularly since we thought we were done with that. We just went through it a few weeks ago. Thought Campaign Stops were over and he inflicts this on us again. The American People expect him to sit down with the republicans in congress and work this out. Now, a year ago or so, last year, he agreed to 800 billion in tax hikes. Thats kind of where the number was. He comes back with twice that and when he gets obviously a no from republicans, you dont double it and say thats okay. He immediately goes out on the campaign trail so he does need to come back to washington, they need to sit down. Thats what the American People expect them to do. I mean, the bottom line is hes just been reelected, hes the winner. The republicans were vanquished and i suspect president obama says ill be calling the shots here. There is still a month left. Weve got to have something to talk about for the rest of the month, right . You have to kind of look at this as sort of a poker game. Everybodys going to sort of try to barter for as best a deal as they can get and know they are going to have to make concessions along the way. What he did is he went for it. He said look, im going to do 1. 6 trillion in tax hikes, only 400 billion in cuts. He conveniently did not cut Social Security, medicare and medicaid which poll as the most popular programs and things that americans actually want. And if you look at it, 60 of americans actually support the idea of raising taxes and that of course goes beyond those that just voted for him. So hes going with what are the popular issues that i know i can get americans around me and im going to put republicans in a really tight spot where theyre going to have to either say look, were going to make cuts to programs that we know that you like and frankly, they know that its going to be bad for republicans if a deal doesnt get done. So a lots still happening behind the scenes and what were hearing publicly is a lot of posturing in that poker game happening. Yeah. The problems of republicans it seems to me is theyve had this completely intransigent position driven by grover norquist, but all the polls say twothirds of americans are quite happy for the wealthier to pay more taxes in america. I think they should just get on with it and suck it up. Well, it was a relatively close election but the president did win and he has to own this. We also know that the Washington Post said this, and if you just close the loopholes and deductions on the folks instead of just raising their tax rates outright, you can come up with close to that 800 billion that they did agree on last year. You get to a