d.: In light of what happened during last night’s Monday Night Football game, I reconsidered the post I was going to run today. I would like to address the issue of athletes and others who put their wellbeing, and sometimes their lives at risk on a regular basis.
Soldiers, firemen and those in police work accept the fact that their lives are at risk on a regular basis. It doesn’t take away the sting when a family gets a phone call in the middle of the night, or a mother, father or young wife or husband sees two soldiers in dress uniforms knocking at their doors. Those of us in the medical industry accept the fact that we will be exposed to contagious illnesses on a regular basis, and some may even be deadly. My coworkers and I accept the fact that we work with criminals who have been removed from society because they are considered to be a danger to the general population. That doesn’t take the sting away when we hear of someone meeting with his or her demise at the hands of an inmate.
Damar Hamlin was the unfortunate victim of a perfectly placed, though unintentional blow. He was hit at exactly the place on his chest that could cause a strong, healthy, well-conditioned twenty-four-year-old to go into cardiac arrest. The good news is, he’s a healthy, well-conditioned twenty-four-year-old. If anyone would be able to pull through and overcome this, it would be someone like Damar Hamlin.
I’m not trying to take anything away from what happened last night, but I became perturbed at the announcers as they proclaimed that “nothing like this has ever happened on the football field.” My son, an avid football fan, gave me a questioning look when I said, “yes it has, I saw it happen.” I urged him to look up Darryl Stingley. That was the scariest thing that I have ever seen up until last night.
Darryl Stingley was a tremendously talented football player who played wide receiver for the New England Patriots in the late 1970s. He ran a crossing pattern on the (at the time) Oakland Raiders safety named Jack (they call me assassin) Tatum. “The Assassin” delivered a crushing blow to Stingley’s spine. Stingley didn’t get up after the hit. As The Assassin celebrated the hit as he was prone to do, Stingley lay motionless on the field. The medical staff came onto the field and evaluated the situation, as they did last night. Stingley was taken to the hospital, where it was discovered he had suffered a fracture of the spinal column above the third cervical vertebrae, rendering him a quadriplegic until his death. The game, however, continued after he was carried off the field on a stretcher.
Before he was evaluated by the medical staff, no one knew if Darryl Stingley was dead or alive, just as no one knew if Damar Hamlin would live last night. I think the teams and the NFL did the right thing last night, suspending the game until further notice. The players on both teams were visibly upset, and no one watching would have cared about the score. I cannot remember who won the Raiders-Patriots game over forty years ago. All I remember is the image of Daryll Stingley’s seemingly lifeless body lying on the field.
To their credit, the announcers of last night’s game did relent and finally say that it wasn’t an unprecedented situation, just an unfortunate and very scary one. That I can agree with. I played football for six years. The worst thing I saw happen was a kid fall on his wrist and suffer a compound fracture. (If you aren’t familiar with this term, look up “Joe Theismann breaks his leg on Monday Night Football” on YouTube. He suffered a compound fracture on that play.) Sadly, this young man had no interest in playing football. He was recruited by the coaches because of his size. His size (over two-hundred pounds as a twelve-year-old) worked to his disadvantage when he took the brunt of it on his wrist.
The second worst thing I saw happen was one of my teammates get dehydrated and his electrolytes out of balance during a practice. He had a mild heart condition, so this was a bad situation. The worst part was that it was at a football camp located at least twenty miles from the nearest town. The fortunate part was his mother was an RN. When the coaches called her, she told them to take him to the E.R. immediately. She met them at the emergency room and instructed the nurses and doctors working there about his condition. He was treated and went on to have a good enough season to earn a college scholarship. His teammates also benefitted. We were allowed to drink water during practices and not to practice at two o’clock in the afternoon in the Deep South during August.
In the 1970s, coaches believed that drinking too much water was a bad thing. We weren’t allowed to drink water but twice in a two-hour practice. If we asked the trainer for an aspirin because we had a headache either from the heat or a blow to the head, we were told to chew the aspirin. No water was allowed to be drunk between breaks. This mentality is probably why the game in which Darryl Stingley broke his neck wasn’t suspended.
When my three sons expressed an interest in playing football, I was both happy and concerned. My wife wasn’t enthusiastic about them playing tackle football, and we both agreed that this should be delayed until they had at least reached middle school. On my days off, I made it a priority to watch a few practices. I was pleased with what I observed, for the most part.
While hydration is encouraged during practice and games, training hasn’t advanced much on the high school level for the last fifty years. Much of what I heard my sons and their coaches say about training were myths I was taught as a young man. When I got involved in endurance sports, and later, in the medical industry, I learned how false and potentially dangerous some of these myths are.
One of the coaches who left the school before I started playing high school football believed in stretching, nutrition, and using toning techniques during weight training. He was the laughingstock of the conference in the late 1970s. It’s hell to be ahead of your time. I just wish more coaches like him existed today.
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