Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin is examined during the first half of an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals Monday, January 2, 2023 in Cincinnati. ` photo
NEW YORK (`) – The harrowing scenes of Damar Hamlin’s collapse on the field after suffering cardiac arrest have forced some fans to once again face a truth they’ve always known but hated to think about: football, a game with Violence in its DNA It can go from exciting and happy to dark and tragic in a flash.
Now that the Buffalo Bills defenseman remains in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital, fans like Max Cerone are reflecting on their relationship to the sport they love.
Cerone, 24 years old like Hamlin and a high school counselor in the Buffalo area, grew up just minutes from Bills Stadium and attended games with his father from a young age “in the pre-season and 90 degrees or below zero and snowfall.”
Cerone and his friends curled up at home with two buddies to watch Monday’s high-stakes matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals and watched in horror as Hamlin finished what appeared to be a routine tackle just minutes into the game, got up quickly and then collapsed backwards onto the floor, legs apart, motionless, shockingly limp. They watched as ailing teammates cried, knelt and prayed while medical staff struggled to revive the 6ft, 200lb player’s heart.
“People sometimes look at players like they’re in a video game.” Cerone said – as avatars and fodder for fans’ fantasy leagues. “We watch them for entertainment and complain when they don’t play well. But these people put their lives on the line every time they go out and put the pads on.”
It is exceedingly rare for a player to go into cardiac arrest on the pitch and the injury Hamlin suffered wasn’t necessarily specific to football or any sport.
Nonetheless, it came immediately after a goal and was a stark reminder that humans are not built to repeatedly collide with other humans at the high speeds required by football. And for some fans with kids, it’s put more thought into whether those kids are allowed to play.
Like many fans interviewed in the days after the game, Cerone doesn’t see him giving up football any time soon. But he definitely wants the NFL to continue to do more for health and safety, especially when it comes to head injuries.
Ex-fan Laurie Goldberg made a different calculation.
Goldberg, a public relations pro who worked for a sports trading card company for years, says she’s soured the sport over the past decade as she learned more about traumatic brain injuries and the risks of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which her The film from 2015 had raised awareness “Concussion,” in which Will Smith played the real doctor who sets off the CTE alarm and the book it is based on.
“I loved football and I miss it” says Goldberg, 63, originally from Baltimore, where she grew up an avid Colts fan, and now from Marina del Rey, California. But she says “I couldn’t watch anymore. I felt like I was watching the gladiators, watching people sacrifice their lives. This isn’t ancient Rome… Looking at it, it just seems like we’re adding to the problem.”
Mark Oldfield, a lifelong Bengals fan, prefers to focus on the hope that tragic incidents on the field will lead to life-saving improvements.
“I have a feeling this is going to be one of those moments that will actually make football better.” says Oldfield, 59, a teacher at Springmyer Elementary School in Cincinnati and a Bengals season ticket holder for 36 years.
Oldfield was sitting in the ballpark, three rows from the north endzone, when Hamlin received the hit. He was also present at the last game when Miami Dolphin quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered a horrific concussion during a game that left him unconscious and had to drag him off the field.
Oldfield hopes Tagaovailoa will not play again this season. But he notes that there have been steady advances in managing the risk of brain injury, albeit not enough. “As long as you see growth, that’s a good thing,” he says.
Khalil Springs, also 24, a Bills fan who works in real estate in Buffalo, agrees the sport has gradually improved in terms of safety. “The game has changed – you see it in tackles where they try to ease off a bit. People are aware of that and that’s maybe all you can do in such a violent sport. It will only get better.”
In a broader sense, Springs is sure of it “Something good will come of this.” Actually yes, he remarks; Fans have joined to give millions to Hamlin’s fundraiser for a children’s toy drive that now surpasses $7 million.
Like many others, Jason Fond believes that the Hamlin episode will result in some kind of positive change in player safety. One small change, he notes, has already happened: The youth team he coaches sent an email the morning after the NFL incident, demanding that coaches be certified to use a defibrillator.
“How do we digest that?” asks Fond, an orthopedist and sports medicine specialist in Nanuet, New York. “People who are against violent sports will say, ‘I told you, that’s terrible, why is football even allowed?’ Other people will say, ‘This is unique and we will never see this again in our lives.’”
He tends towards the latter himself, as a fan, coach, father and player in his youth. He says the huge increase in concussion awareness is making it safer for kids like his 11-year-old son, who plays tackle football (his three children play multiple sports). Fond says he told him: “You get a concussion and you’re done.”
If his son wanted to play in college, where “massive people” run towards you “This conversation would be difficult for me” he adds.
In some parts of the country, reverence for the sport can encourage a more open-minded attitude toward tackle football for young children, says Joel Fields of Biloxi, Mississippi, who founded the Gulf Coast Sharks Youth Football Club in 2021.
“We’re going to be playing teams from all over the country, but we’re playing teams mainly from the south and we’ve seen how … five-year-old and six-year-old football teams have attacked.” said fields. He doesn’t think kids should play tackle football until they’re eight and hopes Hamlin’s injury will serve as a reminder for coaches to teach kids safe ways to play.
The calculation is different for each parent. Kim Staley, a Kansas City mom and account manager for a pharmaceutical company, is a big football fan herself – “Youth, High School, College, NFL, Monday Night, Thursday Night, Saturday & Sunday” she jokes. “I’m THAT mom.” She was horrified by Hamlin’s injury and is praying for his recovery, as is her son Hunter, 17.
But, says Staley, 55, “I wouldn’t stop my child from playing because of that.” She says too little is known about what caused Hamlin’s collapse and that friends’ children have suffered more injuries in other sports than her son has in football. Hunter hopes to play in college. “I support him in the sport he loves”, Staley says. “Until he tells me otherwise.”
Lisa Burtin has made a similar call for her son Deon, also 17, who has been playing since he was five and wants to play in college too.
“It was definitely stunning, horrific,” Burtin said about the Hamlin injury. “When it comes to life and death, everything stops. That’s all that counts.” She was glad the game was cancelled. But she says there are still questions to be answered: “Was it because of the tackle, because of football or something beyond that?”
Burtin, 55, a nurse practitioner in Kansas City, said a bigger concern is head injuries, which are much more common.
But either way, she says “You just don’t live your life in fear. My son wants to play football.” And as a fan, she says, she remains loyal: “I know it’s a tough sport. But I think it brings people together.”
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