ESPN’s Ryan Clark Earns Rightful Plaudits For Powerful Handling of Damar Hamlin’s Life-Threatening Injury

ESPN NFL analyst Ryan Clark is being commended for his powerful reaction to the life-threatening injury sustained by Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin Monday night.

Hamlin fell to the ground after tackling Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins in the Monday Night Football game between the Bills and Bengals in Cincinnati. CPR was administered to Hamlin by medical personnel for 10 minutes. The game was temporarily suspended before being indefinitely postponed. Hamlin is currently in critical condition at University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Live television is hard. It’s particularly hard to cover something as terrifying as a life-threatening injury sustained during a night of sports.

Clark rose to the moment.

Minutes after the game was postponed, Clark, who played in the NFL between 2002 and 2014, demonstrated extraordinary humanity as he told ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt:

I think the first thing — this is about Damar Hamlin. It’s about a young man at 24 years old that was living his dream, that a few hours ago was getting ready to play the biggest game of his NFL career and there’s probably nowhere else in the world he wanted to be. And now, he fights for his life. When Damar Hamlin falls to the turf and when you see the medical staff rush to the field and both teams are on the field, you realize this isn’t normal. You realize this isn’t just football. So many times in this game and in our job as well, we use the cliches, you know? ‘I’m ready to die for this. I’m willing to give my life for this. It’s time to go to war.’ I think sometimes we use those things so much, we forget that part of living this dream is putting your life at risk.

Clark went on to say that what transpired is bigger than football:

Tonight, we got to see a side of football that is extremely ugly. A side of football that no one ever wants to see or never wants to admit exists. When you see both teams on the field crying in that way, your first thought is Damar Hamlin. The second thought is his family. This isn’t about a football player, right? This is about a human. This is about a brother. This is about a son. This is about a friend. This is about someone who is loved by so many that you have to watch go through this. I’ve dealt with this before and I watch my teammates for days come to my hospital bed and just cry. I had them call me and tell me that they didn’t think I was going to make it. And now this team has to deal with that and they have no answers.

So the next time that we get upset about our favorite fantasy player or we’re upset that the guy on our team doesn’t make the play and we’re saying “he’s worthless” and we’re saying “you get to make all this money,” we should remember that these men are putting their lives on the line to live their dream. Tonight, Damar Hamlin’s dream became a nightmare for not only himself but also his family and entire team.

The aftermath of the Hamlin injury demonstrated the best and the worst of punditry. While others online used the horrific incident to push their personal political views and spread conspiracy theories, Clark treated the news with elegance, grace, perspective and a humanity so often missing from our frequently crass discourse.

He is being applauded for it, rightfully.

Watch above via ESPN.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.