Damar Hamlin’s Crisis Brought Out the Best in Our Culture

And some ridiculousness

I was in an enjoyable but slightly two-faced position on Monday, January 2nd for the Bengals and Bills game on Monday Night Football. Being a fan of both the Bengals and the Bills, I was really undecided as to who I wanted to win. I follow the Bengals having been a resident of the Cincinnati area for most of my life. After the Redskins, they were always my second-favorite team when I lived in Maryland, especially when Boomer Esiason, the quarterback for UMCP when I attended, played for the Bengals in the 1990s. I became a fan of the Bills primarily from the enthusiastic egging on by my in-laws from Buffalo. I went to a game with them a few years ago in Buffalo and that did it. The fan base is uniquely cheerful and fun, winning team or not.

I decided I would support the Bengals that evening—after all, they were my home town team. Wearing my Bengals ballcap, I was constantly surrounded by the Buffalo Bills fans of my family. We went to the Bills tailgate party in Covington, which is just a walk across the Ohio River from the Bengal’s stadium. After tailgating for a time, the two of our party who had tickets left for the game. The rest of us decided to go to a local watering hole, Barleycorns, where local Bills fans congregated for Bills games.

In spite of myself, I found myself rooting for each team’s offense as they played. Then about ten minutes into the game, Bills safety, Damar Hamlin, collapsed on the field after tackling Tee Higgins of the Bengals. We were even joking at first that it this was probably the effects of taking the “vaccine.” But then after a time, it became clear that he wasn’t getting up. They kept replaying the hit. He collided with Higgins and made his tackle. He got up, but then suddenly stopped cold and promptly fell over backward like he had fallen dead. We found out later that that was exactly what had happened. He died on the field in front of all of us, those in person and those watching on television. At the time it was becoming increasingly clear from the televised facial expressions and reactions from both teams that it was not good news.   

We were getting nothing from the network broadcast, so I was actively checking Twitter for news updates. An announcer mentioned at first that they were going to give the teams some time to regroup and resume the game. At hearing this, I was not alone in my reaction that the game needed to end that night. Bills quarterback, Josh Allen, had tears in his eyes. They all had expressions of stunned shock and concern over what had happened. How could they continue playing?

Then the greatest part of the night began. The medical people were all over the situation, performed CPR, got Hamlin’s heart pumping again, and the ambulance was off taking him to the hospital, waiting only to collect Hamlin’s mother from the stands to accompany him. The stadium crowd went completely silent. The restaurant we were sitting in went completely silent. The Bills team gathered in a large circle and kneeled together in prayer. My wife, MG, so much more fearless than me, called out that we needed to pray for Hamlin, so we prayed out loud for him, an Our Father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be. A young man we didn’t know and my nephew joined MG in a group prayer.

It was no longer a friendly rivalry between two American cities—it was a coming together. I soon began to see calls for prayers all over social media and people posting images of merged Bengals and Bills logos. As the week progressed, the City of Cincinnati blazed in colors of Bills’ blue and red in support of Hamlin and his team. Hamlin’s personal charity received millions in donations. An ESPN analyst prayed for Hamlin on air—this was simply wonderful.  

We scanned the news for word of Hamlin’s progress—and it was all good news. I realized what a lucky and blessed man Hamlin was. His collapse took place in public with medical care seconds away, and the prayers of thousands were heard. After two days, he finally revived and one of his first questions was, “Who won the game?” It didn’t even occur to him that they would have cancelled the game over his collapse. As of today, he is making steady progress and I pray it continues.

It was right to cancel the game. It was unprecedented for a player to fall dead on the field. As one commentator put it, football seemed unimportant when a life was at stake. The players were badly shaken, the crowd was no longer interested in the game, and as it turned out, there was never any real push to continue the game that night. They eventually cancelled the game altogether, not to be resumed again.

Then, as with most human activities, the good coming out of the event mingled with ridiculousness. I started seeing news segments about concern for the players’ lasting trauma from what they had witnessed. ‘How could they play again after witnessing that?’ a local sports commentator asked. The players were asked about playing their next game. Joe Burrow, Bengals quarterback, answered as best he could.

My answer: Well, they will go on and play because they are grown adult men, not kindergarteners. Lord have mercy. I’m certain we all could list incidents in our own lives that we witnessed that were awful, but somehow, we went on. In my own life, a child myself, I once watched a kid on a bike get hit by a car—right in front of me. He was on the ground in front of the car, lying on the hot tar in the road—in shock and crying in fear. That was just one incident I recalled, and I will not list further details on others, except to say that I have also witnessed deaths—both in traffic and right outside of my home. I was shaken from the experiences, but I moved on.

The notion that simply witnessing something traumatic is enough to cause lasting harm is sadly pathetic. Like everything else in this world, such things are on a spectrum. On one side, there are truly life-changing incidents that take place such as in war, where someone is traumatized by what they have been through. On the other end, there is witnessing something bad. In other words, there’s an obvious difference between directly experiencing something and merely observing it. The players who were on the field are somewhere in middle of that spectrum, but to place all such experience on an equal footing is not only ridiculous, it is an insult to those who have experienced true trauma from horrific violence or war. Yet, even so, with help, even traumatized people can heal and move on, and even be strengthened by the experience. God willing.

Oh, and the ladies of “The View” denounced the violence of the sport. Whatever.