With Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin on the mend — doctors removed a breathing tube Thursday and he spoke to teammates via video — the statute of limitations for critics has expired.
“I love you boys,” Hamlin, still in a Cincinnati hospital, told his New York-based team Friday via FaceTime, the Bills said on Twitter.
The Hamlin Incident is considered the day Mother Earth stood still. The power of the moment and the ultimate influence of members of the media encouraged viewers to board this bandwagon.
ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky has won the Damar Hamlin contest with an on-air prayer that could cultivate an evangelical career to rival Joel Osteen. Or, perhaps Orlovsky’s brothers and analysts on set, Anthony Booger McFarland, could redirect his career to the pulpit as heir apparent to TD Jakes.
“God, we come to you in these times that we don’t understand, which are difficult, because we believe that you are God and that coming to you and praying to you has an impact,” Orlovsky said. “We are sad, we are angry, we want answers, but some things are unanswered. We just want to pray, really come to you and pray for Damar’s strength, for Damar’s healing, for Damar’s comfort, to be with his family, to give him peace.
Everyone is entitled to personal prayers although one belief here only proposes that the will of my higher power be done here and elsewhere.
Orlovsky’s prayer comes as a spectacle, a once-in-a-lifetime event that jettisoned him into viral superstar status – A prayer in a world of sports that turns God into a self-interested football fan and all that goodwill into a would-be game-changer game for humanity, until a motorist cuts you off in traffic, you turn it off and the Rat Race starts up again.
Meanwhile, announcers identified angels and world change, talked about a Christian God, karma and a litany of other religious topics. God or the concepts of God found themselves on the lips of all sports and news presenters. Hamlin, near death, resurrected as the world’s next Jesus.
If people needed the Hamlin event to understand the precarious nature of life, they lived an enchanted existence, unlike Lisa and Norm McClain. On September 9, 2022, their 16-year-old son Xavier, a sophomore at Linden High School, suffered a severe blow during a football game against Woodbridge High School.
The teenager, similarly to Hamlin, stood up, but collapsed.
“He got up like he was a strong person and then fell back down,” classmate Asia Marshall told NBC New York. It was just painful and sad to see someone go so fast, thinking they were going to go home and end up in a coma, you know.
And nearly two weeks later, McClain passed away. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, 42 footballers at all levels died from direct and indirect causes between 2015 and 2017. Of that total, 30 involved high school students.
In 2021, four high school football athletes died from catastrophic traumatic brain injuries. No substantial change has occurred in the total number of direct injury deaths in football in the last 10 years from 2012 to 2021 (41 deaths) compared to the previous 10 years from 2002 to 2011 (43 deaths) .
Add spinal cord injuries, concussions and paralysis to this reality of football and it’s ridiculous to think that NFL players are unaware of the brutal nature of their sport. They rose through this glove of broken bones and lacerated spleens.
Incredibly, in 102 years of NFL, professional football suffered a death on the field when Detroit Lions wide receiver Chuck Hughes suffered a heart attack when a blood clot dislodged after a hard tackle.
The October 1971 incident became newsworthy again after the Hamlin event. Allowing for a low, four deaths a year on high school or sand pitches, around 200 non-professional footballers have died since Hughes’ death.
While prayers are never out of place, it’s amazing how the media and the NFL ignore the deaths and physical injuries suffered by teenagers.
Interestingly, the McClains had never missed a Xavier football game until that fateful day. Reports noted that the McClains were major supporters.
“We never missed a game, but this one we missed,” Lisa said. And I have to live with that. I was not at this game. I’m going to have to live with that,” Norm said.
” I am in pain. I lost my boy. I love my son,” Lisa McClain said. “He is so loved. He has a lot of family. And it’s not fair that I bury my son. Norman recognized a difficult road ahead.
“I’m just going to try to start my life over, and I just hope it doesn’t happen to other kids who play ball,” Norm McClain said.
The deaths will continue until the NFL and the media make this issue a priority. Pray for this day.