I ordered my first official NFL jersey last week. It only took me 52 years. I enjoy a good pro football game but have never closely followed an NFL team. My team loyalties lie with my college alma maters. As a lifelong UNC Tar Heel basketball fan and a dedicated Michigan Wolverine football fan, I bleed Carolina blue on the basketball court and have Go Blue forever imprinted in my DNA from grad school days in “The Big House.” 

I will wear my Buffalo Bills Hamlin 3 jersey with no pretense of being a member of the Bills Mafia (yet) but simply as a grateful tribute to the hope and inspiration I witnessed over the first week of 2023. In stark contrast to the embarrassing fiasco played out in our nation’s capitol by bickering national “leaders,” watching the events surrounding Damar Hamlin’s traumatic injury unfold exemplified all the good I want to believe about humanity and our nation’s potential. 

I once longed for Condoleezza Rice to run for president and think I now understand why she set her sights on the NFL commissioner position instead. Two decades ago in the New York Times, Rice was quoted as saying, “I think it would be a very interesting job because I actually think football, with all due respect to baseball, is a kind of national pastime that brings people together across social lines, across racial lines. And I think it’s an important American institution.”

That’s exactly what we witnessed over the first week of 2023 and it was truly beautiful. Hamlin’s injury was horrific and terrifying, and I wish it had not happened to him. But all that was triggered the moment he crumpled to the turf was extraordinary and will hopefully carry him through his long road to recovery and beyond.

When I wear my jersey, I will think of Damar’s parents, who hospital personnel and the Bills head coach described as exemplary in their handling of their son’s life-threatening injury. As a parent of multiple children with complex medical issues, I have spent many days of my life in ICUs, including the day our son Timothy died there. It is both an overwhelming and beautiful place to be, but it is not an easy place to be. Tensions run high in life-or-death situations, and the ICU is a constant life-or-death situation for its inhabitants. The ICU staff is trained for that, the patients are fighting for their lives, but family members are thrust into the environment, usually without warning. Sleep is elusive, stress abounds, and the stakes are high. To have your parenting described as exemplary in that context is an impressive tribute.

Damar credits the presence of his parents as “the biggest difference” in his life, but that presence did not come easily. Damar’s dad was imprisoned for a drug conviction for three-and-a-half years of Damar’s childhood. Whatever choices may have led to Mario Hamlin’s conviction as a young father, they were clearly overshadowed by his choice not to let that define him or give him an excuse to abandon his son. As Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) says repeatedly, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done.” The fact that Nina and Mario Hamlin held their young family together through such adversity likely prepared them for what they faced on January 2 and the days that followed; the hottest fires forge the strongest steel. When I wear my jersey, I will hope to parent my family with the same resolve.

My Tar Heel legacy (born, bred, dead as our fight song so eloquently states) imprinted me with a clear understanding of rivalry and competition. When we beat Duke in the semifinal game of the 2022 Final Four, that was as satisfying to me as winning the national title would have been. (In addition to passing the dreaded swim test, all UNC grads are mandated to hate Duke for the rest of their days.) Seeing the intensity of the Bengals-Bills competition immediately dissolve into unity in prayer and support for Damar on the field and over the week that followed was incredible to witness. Cincinnati’s acts of hospitality and support trickled across the nation and into Week 18 of competition as opposing players, coaches, and fans expressed support for Damar and the Bills. When I wear my jersey, I will carry these memories as hope for our polarized nation.    

Medical providers have long been heroes in my world. The heart surgeon who repaired the hole in my daughter’s heart and the perfusionist who simulated her heart and lungs while the surgeon worked seemed to have superpowers in my eyes. The many nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, and countless other medical providers who have cared for my kids year after year have my utmost respect. Seeing the athletic trainers, paramedics, trauma physicians, and other “ordinary” folks doing their everyday jobs while the nation was riveted to television broadcasts and Twitter updates allowed a dark situation to illuminate something that happens somewhere every single hour of every single day. When I wear my jersey, I will remember the people who live ever-ready to fight for the life of whoever needs their care. 

My youngest son is my sports-watching buddy, but he can never play a contact sport because of the cerebral shunt placed in his head just before his first birthday. He can’t emulate the physical prowess of the elite athletes we cheer for, but I will surely encourage him to show the love and brotherhood that Damar Hamlin’s NFL brothers demonstrated this past week. The hugs, tears, and prayers were not limited to the minutes or even hours that followed Damar’s cardiac arrest but extended into the next weekend and to the week of his return to Buffalo. In a world where masculinity is too often equated with self-reliance, bravado, and emotional absence, we sure needed to see that when shaken by sudden trauma, the biggest, strongest, toughest men in our society dropped to their knees, bowed their heads, and pleaded for the life of their brother. And as they waited days for news, they clung to and took care of each other. When I wear my jersey, I will remember that as Damar tweeted after waking up to find he had “won the game of life,” “Putting love into the world comes back 3xs as much.” 

I do not subscribe to the philosophy that tragedies happen “for a reason,” but looking for the good and the hope in darkness has served me well in the hardest seasons of my life. Damar Hamlin has a long recovery ahead of him, but everything I have seen from him, his family, and his teammates makes me believe that they, too, will be looking for the good and the hope. Perhaps the nation that came together in the first week of 2023 to show “Love for Damar” can put some love back into the world by believing that young dads in prison can grow into exemplary parents and by supporting overworked medical providers whether they care for pro athletes or kids with disabilities. Maybe we can encourage our sons to look up to men who pray and cry and hug and stand in unity, even for their “enemies.” And perhaps our polarized nation, whose leaders seem to be constantly embroiled in conflict, can follow the NFL’s playbook this past week and come together across racial, social, and political lines. That’s the team I want to be on—the team whose jersey says Hamlin 3.