Hayden Hurst impacted at least one teenage boy’s life by opening up about what led him to almost taking his own.
Last May, Hurst, then with the Baltimore Ravens, was at South Hagerstown High School in Maryland — the final stop on a four-school mental health education campaign — sharing how he dealt with depression and anxiety, which began during an unsuccessful stint as a pitcher in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Although he left baseball to play college football, his struggles with depression persisted, and he started drinking heavily and using drugs and, eventually, attempted suicide in January 2016, when he was playing tight end at South Carolina.
Hurst refers to it at his “come to Jesus moment.”
After Hurst shared part of his story with the South Hagerstown group, he said, a boy approached him, still in tears.
“He was pretty short in his response,” Hurst recalled, “and he was just like, ‘Hey, thank you for telling your story. I really appreciate it. It meant a lot to me.'”
A woman then stopped Hurst before he exited. It was the boy’s mother, and she explained how her son was going through the loss of his father and had attempted suicide himself.
“She said, ‘Your story really hit home with him,'” Hurst said. “I always say that to all the kids: ‘Hey, if I just affect one of you today, that’s my goal.’”
The South Carolina football staff, including then-newly named head coach Will Muschamp, showed empathy for Hurst’s plight and applauded his progress.
“It’s awesome to see him grow up in front of your eyes and to see how he is handling the situation now moving forward,” Muschamp said of Hurst. “To be honest with you, I’m a football coach, not a psychiatrist, so I felt a little hopeless when the situation arose. But we have a wonderful support system here at the University of South Carolina.
“You have to compliment Hayden and his family. He’s got a great support system at home with his parents and sister. And Hayden himself, you have to credit the young man for recognizing some things he needed to deal with in life. That’s why I think he has such a strong voice.”
Hurst repeatedly praises his parents, Jerry and Cathy, and his sister, Kylie, for keeping his spirits up. The four of them refer to themselves as the “Core Four” because of their tight bond. Kylie, a veterinarian in Atlanta, now gets to see her brother on a regular basis. And Cathy, who is retired in Jacksonville with her husband, runs her son’s foundation.
The work ahead
Hayden Hurst created the Hayden Hurst Family Foundation in 2018 to focus on mental health awareness and suicide prevention. His story is a powerful tool in accomplishing the foundation’s mission.
New Denver Broncos running back Melvin Gordon said he’s not concerned if fans can’t be in the stands when the NFL season begins because he has already dealt with that.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, playing games without fans in attendance is one possibility for the 2020 NFL season. During an interview with former NFL cornerback Marcus Cromartie that was posted Wednesday on Twitter, Gordon said the past three years with the Chargers in Los Angeles prepared him for this.
“Bro, we didn’t have fans anyway,” Gordon said while laughing. “We didn’t have many Chargers fans at the game. I’m just going to be honest. We didn’t have many Chargers fans at the game. Much loyalty, love, but we didn’t have many. So I’m not missing anything.”
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Since the start of the 2017 season, the Chargers have played in Los Angeles at the Dignity Health Sports Park. Originally built to host soccer matches, the Chargers’ home stadium has an NFL-low capacity of 27,000. Of those in attendance at Chargers games, most were identified as fans of the opposing team while the Chargers began to build a fan base in Los Angeles after moving from San Diego.
The Chargers will begin play this season at SoFi Stadium, a new arena that it will share with the Los Angeles Rams.
Gordon, however, won’t be calling Southern California his football home this season, as he signed a two-year deal with AFC West rival Denver.
New York Jets wide receiver Quincy Enunwa, battling a career-threatening neck injury that will keep him off the field in 2020, still hopes to play again one day. But that decision, he said, no longer is in his control.
In an interview with ESPN, Enunwa said Wednesday it was “devastating” to learn recently he had been ruled out for the season. Now, he said, the only thing he can do is play the waiting game.
“If I’m capable of playing, then that’s what I’ll do,” he said, making his first public comments since the end of the season. “If it comes down to the fact that the doctors say I can’t, there’s not much I can do. There’s really nothing I can do there, but if I have the ability to [play], the passion will always be there, the want-to will always be there.
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“I think, aside from obviously my neck, the physical ability will always be there. It’s really just about me going for the ride, I guess, because I’m not in control of that part anymore.”
On May 5, Enunwa was placed on the reserve/physically unable to perform list, making him ineligible for 2020. The move came as no surprise; the team had expressed no optimism about his chances for a return.
Enunwa, who missed the 2017 season because of a neck injury that required surgery, reinjured it in the 2019 opener and missed the final 15 games. He didn’t have another surgery. By the end of 2020, he will have missed almost three full seasons out of the last four.
Enunwa said he has no regrets.
“There’s really no one to blame,” he said. “It’s one of those things. If I could’ve had a crystal ball and told myself … this was going to happen, I probably would’ve done it the same way. There’s nothing really I regret or I’m upset with anybody about.
“I think everybody tried to handle it the best way that we could. There’s no way to have prevented this other than not play football, and I don’t know if I would’ve been as happy if I made that choice.”
Enunwa remains on the Jets’ payroll, earning a fully guaranteed $6 million for 2020. He has a $4.1 million injury guarantee in 2021 as part of the four-year, $33.4 million extension he signed in December, 2018. If he opts for voluntary retirement, he’d jeopardize his salary.
Asked about his future with the Jets, Enunwa said, “I’m under contract. I want to be a Jet for life. I saw Eli Manning say something. On his Twitter page he wrote, ‘Once a Giant, always a Giant, only a Giant.’ It would be cool to say that as a Jet.”
Enunwa, who turns 28 on Sunday, admitted the time away from football has taken an emotional toll.
“The simple word is just depressed, I guess,” he said. “If I’m being completely candid, there were times where it was tough to navigate what I was going through and then trying to figure out how to be comfortable coming into the facility, knowing there’s a possibility this whole game could be taken away from me. It’s been tough and it was tough, but I’m definitely handling it much better now than I was before.”
Enunwa said the low point came last November, when he was fined $27,900 by the team for missing two mandatory rehab sessions. He ripped the organization in a series of tweets, saying the fines were “excessive.” He blamed it on a lack of communication, adding the communication in recent months with general manager Joe Douglas and coach Adam Gase has improved.
He hasn’t been able to work out at the Jets’ facility because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Enunwa, who lives in New Jersey, said it hasn’t affected his rehab because he can do it at home. He hopes to be around the team when it returns.
Before the second injury, Enunwa was considered one of the Jets’ top young players. His best season was 2016, when he caught 58 passes for 857 yards.
“The passion I played with, that’s never left,” he said. “I think if everything goes the way I hope it goes, it’s still going to be there for me. My physical ability has not left. I’ve just been kind of like slowed down, hampered, you know? I’m doing my best to work around those limitations that I have. Again, that passion is not gone.”
New Orleans Saints defensive end Noah Spence suffered a torn ACL while training away from the team, a source confirmed Tuesday.
Spence was placed on the reserve/non-football injury list since the injury did not occur as part of New Orleans’ offseason training program — which was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. That means he can’t play for the Saints this year and won’t count against their 90-man roster. NFL Network was the first to report the nature of Spence’s injury.
Situations like this could add another wrinkle to these unusual offseason circumstances. Teams aren’t required to pay salaries in the cases of “non-football” injuries. But they could decide to work out injury settlements or place players on injured reserve when rosters are trimmed in September and continue paying them.