For Damar Hamlin, a noun alone wouldn't do
Jan. 11—Love can be a noun or verb.
Merriam-Webster says it, so it must be true.
The NFL messaging in the final weekend of the regular season sure looked like a noun.
In the wake of Damar Hamlin's cardiac arrest on the field in Buffalo's Jan. 2 game at Cincinnati and the subsequent outpouring of support from a football nation, the National Football League responded with t-shirts and video board graphics that said, "Love for Damar."
What Damar Hamlin needed was love as a verb, and in this instance the action that showed love was prayer.
Bengals and Bills players showed this as they knelt in a prayer circle while the ambulance taking Hamlin to a Cincinnati hospital slowly drove off the playing field.
The Titans and Jaguars showed it before their game last Saturday night.
The prayer that has generated the most attention came the day after the Bills-Bengals game when Dan Orlovsky lifted up Hamlin and his family on ESPN's "NFL Live." Orlovsky had the full support of the show's two other hosts, Laura Rutledge and Marcus Spears, who joined with "amen" when he finished.
Hamlin was in critical condition at the time.
The NFL is very particular with its messaging.
While numerous coaches and players for many years have shared Christian faith in media interviews, players are not allowed to modify their uniforms with personal expressions of any kind except from a short list of messages approved by the NFL. The list is heavy on social justice themes but does not include Bible verses.
The NFL hasn't sought to squash prayer but hasn't encouraged it.
Fortunately for Damar Hamlin lots of people across the nation did not need NFL approval to address God almighty.
In the hours after his collapse, Hamlin's family issued a statement saying it was "deeply moved by the prayers" and other support it had received.
Hamlin's uncle, Dorrian Glenn, told ESPN, "We are just going to continue to pray ..."
This return to prayer by Christians has been interesting, especially as it's been seen at NFL games and through ESPN news coverage.
I believe God hears all prayers and answers them. Sometimes the answers come in ways we don't want or understand, but that's when we should rely on the faith aspect of the relationship.
Often we tend to make prayer a last resort once our efforts to control a given situation have failed. As a society, we've seen this at other times too. The 9-11 tragedy comes to mind.
For Christians, that's not the way prayer is described in the manual.
Hamlin has moved from the Cincinnati hospital to one in Buffalo and continues to improve. It looks like the answer to those who prayed was, "Yes, Damar Hamlin, I still need you down there."
With his life in the balance, Damar Hamlin needed a verb. Thank goodness there were people to provide it.
PARRISH ALFORD is the college sports editor and columnist for the Daily Journal. Contact him at parrish.alford@journalinc.com.
