The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson. The Detroit Free Press Newspaper is a Black-and-White Image of the Detroit Lions Wide Receiver Chuck Hughes
Jeff Pearlman is the author of 10 books, including his latest, The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson. The views expressed here are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.
It exists, in the archives of the Detroit Free Press, a harrowing black-and-white image that found itself atop page 1D of the Oct. 25, 1971 morning newspaper.
There, lying face down on the muddy field, rests the lifeless body of Chuck Hughes, Detroit Lions wide receiver who just moments earlier ran 15 yards into a Chicago Bears secondary, stopped, grabbed and collapsed to his stomach.
George Puscas, the executive sports editor of the Detroit Free Press, stated that it was obvious Chuck Hughes was in serious trouble from the moment Dick Butkus waved frantically at the Lions bench.
There was a response from the medical team, the Buffalo Bills and ancillary help in Cincinnati, which I think was indicative of that. And hopefully if there is a medical emergency at any NFL game that a response like that can be replicated,” said Drezner.
There are a lot of soda fountains in the National Football League. There were potato chips. It is the land of $169 embroidered jerseys and $59 hats. Free shipping if you order ASAP!). It’s the land of gambling apps and fantasy leagues; of shiny helmets and colorful uniforms and scantily clad cheerleaders and adults dressed as foamy barnyard animals. The NFL exists to entice your senses and pull your dollars and bring your suppressed aggressions to life every Sunday afternoon. It is BOOM! There is POW! and POP!
The Collapse of the Bengal Player in the Stadium After Hamlin’s Collision with a Bengal Player: A Case for Unofficial Football
When, in 1971, Hughes was removed from the field, league officials knew he was dead (“We reached him and there was no pulse,” said Dr. Richard A. Thompson, an osteopath on the scene), then took all of 10 minutes to decide the action must continue.
One account that was affiliated with the National Football League immediately after Hamlin’s collision with a Bengal player asked us not to watch the replay. It is too graphic, too disturbing, and too disrespectful.
Some of the fans who agree with this are trying to show respect, but they sounded too much like unofficial/official dogma: Drink your soft drink. Eat your Tostitos. You should wear your foam finger. Don’t worry about the carnage.
When Damar Hamlin arose from the Tiger Stadium: What happened when Damar and Brandon Hughes lived, and what did we do?
But maybe, just maybe, we need to see the reality behind the glitz in all its awful detail. These are actual people, with off-the-field lives and off-the-field endeavors. Hamlin is a son, a brother, a friend. He started his own toy drive for kids from his old neighborhood in the Pittsburgh metro area. “A generous, kind young man,” wrote Andrew Fillipponi, the Pittsburgh journalist.
Brandon Hughes was only one when his father died on the surface of Tiger Stadium, but as soon as he saw what happened to Damar Hamlin, the emotions hit hard. “Everything they were saying was so familiar to me,” Brandon, an employee at a mutual fund company, told me. They talked about how this is something that has never been done before. I thought that was false. it’s not. Not at all.
Brandon Hughes called Sharon when he was a child, but she died at 24. She sounded saddened—both by the uncertainty of Hamlin’s future and the familiar echoes of past tragedy.
In a world like that, where a player is tragically paralyzed during the game, and the game is played on as if nothing ever happened, what would we do?
Now that I’m removed from the game, I feel much differently about injuries, and players’ health, than I did when I was a player. Every day, I’m reminded of the brutal nature of the sport I love, feeling the physical pains from my nine seasons in the NFL. There are screws in my neck. I had multiple concussions, including one in Buffalo where I had no recollection of what happened until I watched the game during film sessions the next day. I remember how frightening injuries can be.
I felt the same as my wife did in Buffalo a long time ago, when I heard the sickening sound of the Bills safety collapsing to the ground and the players crying as they prayed for him. As haunting memories came back in, mental wounds were reopened.
When I was a running back in college,Kerry Carter and I crashed into one another when Kerry was trying to tackle a University of Washington player. Curtis was paralyzed from the neck down. Players cried, prayed, then played on. The day after his 24th birthday, he died of the effects of the paralysis he suffered. My teammate is still haunted by that collision.
Dion Dawkins: How Football Saved My Life and That’s What I Wish For My Son, My Grandpa, and Me
The fact that we are hearing good news about Damar just pushes us forward. Allen mentioned Hamlin’s “Substantial Improvement” in the hospital.
As players, in the past, we were conditioned to compartmentalize physical and mental pain – our own and others’. We realized that focusing on the negative can negatively affect performance. We were trained to fight on with a “next play” mentality anytime something bad happened. So, playing on, despite tragic injuries, was all we knew.
The Monday night game wouldn’t have been called off in the past. Coaches would’ve said, “alright fellas, buckle up and get back on that field and lock in. Good to play on. That did not happen.
Those coaches were cognizant of and concerned about their players’ mental health. They decided that it was not worth trying to continue that game after seeing the players sad faces and teary eyes.
Dion Dawkins told CNN, “I’m thankful that we didn’t have to keep playing.” People tend to treat us athletes like superstars. People like celebrities, but in that moment they treated us like people.
There are still some people, though, who think that the players should have continued playing. Some people care about the performance of their fantasy football team more than they do about their own health and well-being, and that is what you will find on social media. I guess that is what it is to be expected. That is how it has always been.
The boys were playing playground football on a warm winter day, when I watched them. They were off from school for the New Year’s holiday.
I was talking to a dad with an 8-year-old son, who also played college football and is older than my oldest. We chatted about his son’s first experience playing full tackle football in pads this fall. I can’t see letting my son hit that early. Or maybe ever. I can not.
But at the same time, I know football totally changed (and probably saved) my life in a way like nothing else has—except maybe the military. It’s an inner conflict you probably only know if you played or grew up around the game. If you have served in uniform.
What Kind of Father Lets His Son Play Football? An Analysis of an Opposite QCD Piece by Luke Zaleski in the Infinite Game of Football
I can’t explain it to people who haven’t experienced it. They’re not the same, but it often feels a bit like when I’m trying to explain why I joined the military to people who never did. It’s very hard to fully understand it all if you’ve lived it.
It is not easy to communicate why we love it so much despite the risks. If we knew then what we know now, we would probably still have played.
I get asked a lot if I want to play football or join the military. Less of both is the case each year. Talking to people who have done it, and reading is recommended for both. Luke Zaleski explained at least some of it in GQ, in one of the best pieces I’ve seen, headlined: “What Kind of Father Lets His Son Play Football?”
It was supposed to be a marquee match-up as the last game of the regular season and bowl season.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/damar-hamlin-cardiac-arrest-parents-rieckhoff/index.html
Damar Hamlin: a man who isn’t a father of two: A moment of kindness and generosity for a fellow Colts safety
Hamlin is kind and generous. A country that is so often and so deeply split is galvanized by his pain. Especially this week. In this sad moment for Hamlin, he and his family are inspiring others to be helpers as well. And that is worth celebrating as we enter a new year.
After watching the frightening event unfold, Colts rookie safety Rodney Thomas II drove from Indianapolis to Cincinnati to see his friend Hamlin. Meanwhile, NFL fans held vigils outside the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where Hamlin was sedated and intubated in the ICU.
“I know he could hear me,” said Thomas of Hamlin, whom he had met at Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, where the two were teammates and became close friends.
Michael Addis, professor in the department of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, told CNN Sports that what we’ve witnessed over the last few days shows the sport’s evolution, a development he attributes to changing views of masculinity where men are allowed to “experience emotional vulnerability.”
“I think it’s a sign that we’re better prepared than we were a quarter of a century ago to acknowledge emotional and physical health problems in men because, of course, all that sort of traditional laws of masculinity teach us to hide that,” said Addis, who is an expert in men’s depression.
“We’ve had some very open and honest and deep talks,” said Allen. Some people embrace as men, just hugging someone, and actually leaning into them. There’s been a lot of that going around and you need every bit of it, you really do.
Hamlin is able to communicate by shaking his head, nodding or writing brief notes, said University of Cincinnati Health Dr. Timothy Pritts, part of the player’s medical team.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/07/sport/damar-hamlin-nfl-response-spt-intl/index.html
Superbowlin’s Return: How the Bills and Bengals Are coping with the recent NFL Football Football Play Off-Measurement
The NFL announced on Thursday that the game between the Bills and the Bengals has been canceled, though the final week of regular season action begins on Saturday, with the playoff landscape to then become clearer.
“For some people, getting back to business is what it’s all about. And it’s a healthy distraction from what they’re experiencing,” said Addis. There is not way that other people are going to get back to work so early.
I think it will be tough, but there are people that want to play and people that don’t. I want to play, Personally, I probably do.
I like to get back to normal as fast as possible, which is how I deal with these kinds of things. But like I said, everyone has a different way of dealing with it.”
Bills quarterback Allen said that while “people are going to be changed forever” from what took place on Monday, he thinks “putting that helmet back on was a really good thing for our team and just to go through that process.”
“These players are used to seeing broken bone. They’re used to concussion protocols,” Addis said. “This was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill play that came close to resulting in a player’s death.
“So I think for all of the players involved, as well as potentially for fans, this is a time where the risk of trigger of trauma responses is very real.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a memo to teams Tuesday that the heads of player engagement and team clinicians for all clubs have received information about mental health and support resources for players and staff.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/07/sport/damar-hamlin-nfl-response-spt-intl/index.html
I will be watching football when I’m going to college – A story about Denny Kellington, the NFL’s first player and his son, Sam, as a doctor
I am curious to see how this plays out, because I do not think the institution of the game is willing to be as flexible about this as the players might need.
Denny Kellington, the athletic trainer of the Bills, performed on-field cardiopulmonary assist on Hamlin and saved his life.
Dr. Drezner, who is a team doctor for the Seattle sports team and is director of the University of Washington medicine center, says long hours of research and preparation are required to act quickly in an emergency.
The medical staff of NFL teams have a “a written emergency action plan,” including sudden cardiac arrest, head and neck trauma and abdominal or chest trauma, according to Drezner, who explained those plans are practised twice before the season begins – once at their practice facility and once at the stadium which hosts games.
According to the Drezner, before the football season starts, players are required to get annual electrocardiograms to check for heart problems.
It’s usually a heart condition that causes sudden cardiac arrest in young athletes. These are some of the types of heart conditions that are looked for through screening, but are not perfect.
“And, yeah we go to battle, but in the end life is the number one battle, and to see that unity from players, coaches, GMs, owners, fans is unheard of. But I think it’s a good light, it sheds a great light on the NFL. The family of the NFL is very close.
I have been a football fan for practically my entire life. I will be watching football this weekend, and I have watched hundreds of games.
My decision to do so is almost less of a decision than a reflex: It is Sunday. I am me. Thus, I am watching football. I covered and wrote about it when I was a reporter and as a commentator. I was able to eventually write for The New York Times in part because of the training I got writing about “Monday Night Football” matchups and the vagaries of kick-catch interference penalties. In many ways, football has given me the career I have now, the opportunities I have now, the platform I have now.
I wasn’t watching last Monday’s matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals, as the stress from the College Football Playoff (and Michigan’s loss to Texas Christian University) had caused me to take a brief vacation from the world of football. A text from a friend said that the scariest thing he had ever watched was the football game.