As a stunned nation comes to grips with the near-fatal injury of Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin during this week’s nationally televised Monday Night Football game, there have been immediate calls to improve safety protocols to protect players.

Hamlin collapsed and went into cardiac arrest after tackling a Cincinnati Bengals’ player midway through the first quarter of a consequential pre-playoff game for both teams. After play was suspended for more than an hour, National Football League and players’ union officials agreed to postpone the game. Hamlin remains in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital.

There is no question that this heart-wrenching event will have a major impact on the decision-making of parents who are evaluating whether the health risks of playing football are worth the societal and other rewards the sport might bring to their children.

I reflect on the fateful decision I made more than 65 years ago to go out for football in my junior year at Summit Hill High School. I have my band director, Tom Cadden, to thank for making this happen. One of my best friends, the late Dr. Paul Tocchet, and I put enormous pressure on Cadden to rescind his rule that those who played in the high school band could not be part of the football team, too.

Cadden’s logic was that you can’t be on the field as a football player and in the stands as a trumpet player at the same time. Back then, at Summit Hill High (now part of Panther Valley), there was no such thing as separate marching and concert bands. After all, our high school had just about 130 students in grades 10-12.

Between my sophomore and junior years, Cadden relented and allowed those who wanted to play football to join up with the band for the spring concert season.

I had wanted to go out for football in my freshman year, as many of my non-band member friends had done. Football was a strong tradition in our family. Both of my brothers were captains of their respective teams in ’42 and ’47. My late brother, Charlie - known as “Bombo” - was a bruising fullback who was the backbone of the Hillers’ team in 1947.

My father was an avid football fan and was more than disappointed when I opted for the band over football. Although he never said so, he secretly wanted me to uphold the family pigskin legacy. When my brothers played, he left the running of our family grocery store to my mother for three to four hours, and he walked the sidelines showing support and pride for my brothers’ heroics.

On the other hand, my mother was strongly opposed to my playing, scared that the same fate would befall me as it did my brother Charlie, who suffered broken ribs in the final game of his senior year against Nesquehoning and had to be carted off the field in an ambulance and rushed to the hospital.

I guess now is as good a time as any to explain the headline on this column - “football saved my life.” Before going out for football, I was viewed as an oddball. Despite this, I was relatively popular. I was elected class president in my sophomore year, although I had no illusions about this selection. The two most popular guys in the class chose not to run, and the most popular girls wanted to be secretary and treasurer.

In football, I found that giving myself for the good of the team paid off in success and enormous self-satisfaction. My coach always stressed that well-worn saying, “There is no ‘I’ in ‘Team.’” I found this old bromide to be at the heart of my metamorphosis, to be more concerned about others than about myself.

As an upperclassman, I found myself mentoring younger players, even though they were rookies just as I was. Through this cathartic process, I found that satisfaction came in helping and teaching others and to forget the silliness associated with my quest to make everything all about me.

Just before the start of our senior year, team members voted for co-captains. To no one’s surprise, our star quarterback, Will Derby, was one of the selectees. To my utter shock, I was chosen as the other.

My football experience turned my life around and prepared me for a professional career of leadership and collaboration, first as a newspaper editor, then general manager and, finally, as publisher. Football also formed the bedrock of my passion for community service.

Football taught me teamwork, patience, understanding and problem-solving. The many side benefits of football were incalculable in giving me the underpinning tools that would serve me so well for the next 66 years - and counting.

By Bruce Frassinelli?|?tneditor@tnonline.com

(Bruce Frassinelli was inducted into the Carbon County Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.)