Fans of football struggle with the violent side to their beloved sport

NEW YORK (AP) — The harrowing scenes of Damar Hamlin’s on-field collapse after suffering cardiac arrest has forced some fans to yet again confront a truth they’ve always known but hated to think about: Football, a game with violence in its DNA, can go from exciting and joyous to dark and tragic in a flash.

The Buffalo Bills are still without a defensive back. critical condition Max Cerone and other fans are reflecting on their love for the sport in a Cincinnati hospital.

Cerone, age 24 like Hamlin and a high school guidance counselor in the Buffalo area, grew up minutes from the Bills stadium, attending games from childhood with his dad “in pre-season and 90 degrees, or negative degrees and snowing.”

Cerone and two friends sat down at home to watch Monday’s high stakes matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. They were horrified to see Hamlin, who appeared to be performing a routine tackle, stand up quickly, and then fall to the ground. His legs were splayed and motionless. They watched stricken teammates weeping, kneeling and praying as medical staff fought to revive the 6-foot, 200-pound player’s stopped heart.

“People sometimes look at players like they’re in a video game,” Cerone said — as avatars, and fodder for fans’ fantasy leagues. “We watch them for entertainment, and complain when they’re not playing well. But these people are putting their lives on the line every time they’re going out there and putting on the pads.”

It is extremely rare for a player on the field to experience cardiac arrest. The injury Hamlin sustained was not specific to football or any other sport.

Still, it came immediately after a hit, and was a stark reminder that human beings aren’t built to crash into other human beings repeatedly at high velocity, as football requires. It also prompted some to think about whether children should be allowed in football games.

Like many fans interviewed in the days after the game, Cerone doesn’t see himself abandoning football anytime soon. Cerone wants to see more safety and health in the NFL, particularly with regard to head injuries.

Laurie Goldberg, a former fan, has done a different calculation.

Goldberg, a public relations professional who spent years working with a sports trading card company, says she soured on the sport over the last decade as she learned more about traumatic brain injury and the risks of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, her awareness sparked by the 2015 movie “Concussion,” in which Will Smith played the real-life doctor raising the CTE alarm, and the book on which it’s based.

“I loved football, and I miss it,” says Goldberg, 63, originally from Baltimore where she grew up as an avid Colts fan, and now of Marina del Rey, California. But, she says, “I couldn’t watch anymore. It was like I was witnessing gladiators sacrificing their lives. This isn’t ancient Rome … Watching it just seems like we’re adding to the problem.”

Mark Oldfield is a Bengals fan for life and prefers to concentrate on the possibility that tragedy on the field can lead to lifesaving improvements.

“I feel like this is going to be one of those moments that will actually make football better,” says Oldfield, 59, a teacher at Springmyer Elementary School in Cincinnati and a Bengals season ticket holder for the last 36 years.

Oldfield was seated in the stadium three rows from the north sideline when Hamlin scored the hit. Oldfield was also present when Miami Dolphin quarterback Tua tagovailoa suffered an incredibly severe concussion. The play left him unconscious and forced him to be stretchered off the field.

Oldfield hopes Tagaovailoa won’t play again this season. But he notes there’s been steady progress in dealing with the risk of brain injury, though not enough. “As long as you see growth, that’s a good thing,” he says.

Khalil Springs (also 24, a Bills fan, works in Buffalo real estate and agrees that safety has improved. “The game has changed — you can see it in the tackling where they try to let up a bit. People are aware of it, and that’s maybe all you can do in a sport so violent. It’s only going to get better.”

In a broader sense, Springs is certain that “something good will come out of this.” Actually it already has, he notes; fans have joined to donate millions to Hamlin’s fundraiser for a children’s toy drive, which now tops $7 million.

Jason Fond, like many others, believes the Hamlin episode would lead to some sort of safety improvement for players. One small change, Fond notes, already has occurred. The youth team he coaches sent an Email the morning after the NFL scandal, requesting that coaches be certified to use the defibrillator.

“How do we digest this?” asks Fond, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist in Nanuet, New York. “People who are against violent sports are going to say, ‘I told you so, this is awful, why is football even allowed?’ Other people are going to say ‘It’s a one-off and we’re never going to see this in our lifetime again.’”

As a player, coach, father and fan in his youth, he falls more into the second category. He believes that concussion awareness has greatly improved the safety of children like his 11 year old son who plays tackle soccer (his three other kids are involved in multiple sports). Fond says he told him: “You get one concussion and you’re done.”

If his son wanted to play in college, where “massive people” are running at you, “that conversation would be a tough one for me,” he adds.

Joel Fields, a Biloxi, Mississippi native, founded the Gulf Coast Sharks Youth Football Club 2021. He believes that reverence for the sport may allow some areas of the country to accept tackle football for young children.

“We’ll be playing teams from all over the country, but we play mostly southern teams, and we’ve seen … five and six-year-old tackle football teams,” said Fields. He doesn’t think children should play tackle football until they are eight, and hopes Hamlin’s injury reminds coaches to teach kids safer ways to play.

The calculation for each parent is different. Kim Staley, a Kansas City mother and account manager for a pharmaceutical company, is herself a huge football fan – “youth, high school, college, NFL, Monday night, Thursday night, Saturday and Sunday,” she quips. “I’m THAT mom.” She was horrified by the Hamlin injury and is praying for his recovery, as is her son, Hunter, 17.

But, says Staley, 55, “I would not stop my child from playing because of it.” She says too little is known about what caused Hamlin’s collapse, and that friends’ children in other sports have experienced more injuries than her son in football. Hunter plans to play in college. “I support him playing the sport he loves,” Staley says. “Until he tells me otherwise.”

Lisa Burtin has made a similar call for her son Deon, also 17, who’s been playing since he was five, and also wants to play in college.

“It was definitely jaw-dropping, horrific,” Burtin said of the Hamlin injury. “When it’s life and death, everything stops. Nothing else matters.” She was glad to see the game was canceled. But she says there are still questions to be answered: “Was it because of the tackle, because of football, or something underlying?”

Burtin (55), a Kansas City nurse, stated that head injuries are the biggest concern.

But either way, she says, “You just don’t live your life in fear. My son wants to play football.” And as a fan, she says, she remains loyal: “I know it’s a rough sport. But I think it brings people together.”

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Michael Goldberg, AP journalist, Jackson, Mississippi contributed to this report.