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This story is from the Anamnesis episode called Resilience and starts at 3:00 in the podcast. It's from Martin McNair, founder and president of the Jordan McNair Foundation.
Hi, I'm Martin McNair. I am the founder and father of the Jordan McNair Foundation. A lot of people know our story due to our son, Jordan, who literally had a heatstroke on the first day of football practice as a University of Maryland Terrapin in his sophomore year in 2018.
But before we get to that, Jordan was a great kid, a lifelong athlete that really just kind of had the world as his oyster. He was 6'5", 300-plus pounds, a size 16 shoe, and literally he was a coach's dream.
In high school, Jordan went to a school called the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland. He started getting looks from different colleges as a freshman in high school, so I think that he started to really see the magnitude of what his sports skillset could take him in the future.
The coaches at that particular time, at Maryland, were at our kitchen table a few days before Signing Day in the recruitment process.
I asked if Jordan would get some playing time and I asked another question that was relevant to me, but again, I never thought to ask about any type of safety measures in the event that Jordan got hurt. What would they do with their emergency action plans that they had in place? So a lot of these things, I had no idea of at that time. I literally, like so many other parents, you just don't know what you just don't know.
Seizure on the Football Field
Jordan's college year, typical college kid. Obviously, the more and more he got into college, obviously the less that you heard from him. He just was at that point in his life where he was just kind of coming into his own.
When he went back to college that year for spring conditioning, May 28, that was the last time I spoke to Jordan when we had a conversation. That was a typical conversation of basically just saying, "Hey, son. I know practice starts tomorrow. Hey, have a good one. I'll talk to you later in the week. Let me know how things went." But you would text him at that age and he'd pretty much get to you 3 or 4 days later, at least that he would.
So we got a call May 29, the evening of May 29 -- I believe it was like 7 p.m. -- and I believe it was a campus police officer. He was saying that there's been an accident and Jordan had a seizure on the football field. At this particular time, of course, as a parent, obviously, your heart skips a beat. However, I noticed that ... well, I know that all of Jordan's life, literally, he hadn't been in a hospital since the day he was born, so he was healthy as a horse.
I believe Maryland had an emergency action plan after reading the initial investigative report. However, it just wasn't implemented, and so many things that kind of went wrong that day, where the EMTs came to the wrong field that day. So all of these are time that's constantly ticking while Jordan was in the process of fighting for his life, or while he was in that microwave oven scenario, in a sense, and his organs were steady cooking. All of this is time that was taken away from a non-executed emergency action plan.
When we got to the hospital, obviously there were some coaches there, there were some athletic trainers there, and Jordan was in a cooling suit, what they call a bear suit. At this time, all of this was relatively new to me. Then they started using a lot of terms like rhabdomyolysis and things like that, which I really didn't have any knowledge of at that time. I didn't know what was going on with him. I just knew that he was in this bear suit and they were trying to get his body temperature down.
So that next day, we went to ... the doctors, they felt as though it was necessary to move him to a more qualified acute situation or a hospitalized care scenario, so they airlifted Jordan from Washington Adventist Hospital to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma. Things began to become somewhat more clear at this particular time. I still didn't really know what was going on with him, Tonya and I both, as his parents.
We didn't know the magnitude of a heatstroke. We didn't know he had a heatstroke. All I know is that the first doctor that we spoke to really just kind of emphasized how sick Jordan was.
During that whole 2 weeks that Jordan was in the hospital, it was a lot of prayer. It was a lot of self-sacrifice from a perspective as a parent or a father. You always ask yourself, "What did I miss? What questions didn't I ask? If I don't know these things, if we don't know these things, how many other parents in America don't know these things as well?"
So Jordan had a liver transplant that Friday.
Jordan fought. It was a successful liver transplant. However, there was just so much other damage done in regards to organ failure, the rhabdomyolysis of his muscles. Just all of that breakdown in muscle tissue and things like that just really had nowhere to go because the rest of his organs weren't really producing ... they weren't filtering a lot of this stuff that was passing through his body or the breakdown of his body.
Jordan transitioned on June the 13th, 2018. I had always taught Jordan to be an advocate for whatever he felt strongly about, myself had always been an advocate for something, and I was totally unaware of the 30-plus players that had died prior to joining at the NCAA level since the year 2000. One of the things at this point was I just wanted to go ahead and make a difference, and I wanted to get into action.
From Tragedy to Advocacy
I submitted our paperwork for the Jordan McNair Foundation on June the 16th or the 17th, 3 to 4 days after Jordan passed. I didn't want to be in a position that grief would have consumed me because losing a child, it's just a terrible thing that I wouldn't wish on anybody, especially from a 100% preventable injury. I felt as though we had to do something about it. I felt as though, also, that as opposed to our grief taking us into a rabbit hole of despair, I really felt as though if I don't turn my pain into purpose or our pain into passion, it would really take us in some very dark places at that time.
During that time, it was just extremely challenging because, you know, you want to start in the direction of awareness, and luckily, I had already had an advocacy background, just in a different arena, so it was somewhat relatively easy for me to kind of jump into the advocacy efforts.
However, it still was somewhat challenging, really, to kind of deal with the loss of a child. I think that I was just running on pure adrenaline for a long period of time because I really didn't want to face the fact that I had just lost my only son.
One of the main things that I wanted to focus on was as a parent of a successful student-athlete or a highly recruited student-athlete, I would take Jordan to camps, sports clinics across the nation.
A lot of things that were consistent weren't in place or they were the common denominator consistently in a lot of these deaths of student-athletes. It was always the safety equipment, something as simplistic as a cold-water tub that wasn't on the field that day, an emergency action plan.
Now, in regards to sickle cell trait and all these things, these are things that all student-athletes or all coaches in all programs should acknowledge or have that information. Obviously, depending on the level of competition, you have the medical professionals and stuff, but these are things that should be communicated.
Not only was the awareness education and the prevention of heat-related injuries, and just to diminish the deaths from heat-related injuries was not only our only mission, but another mission of our foundation was really to empower student-athletes because, as a father, I figured I'd taught Jordan and I thought I'd taught Jordan everything for him to be successful with that journey in his life, except for what I didn't know.
One of the main things as a lifelong athlete that I never told Jordan was to listen to his body. I was always the father that I wanted to toughen him up. He was a big guy. "You should always be tough." The typical macho-type demeanor that a father teaches his son. "Suck it up, son. Play your hardest. No pain, no gain."
However, at the end of the day, I didn't tell him to listen to his body, which is paramount for all student-athletes to stay safe. If your body tells you to stop, stop, and I didn't teach Jordan that.
One of the main things was I realized the magnitude and the significance of policy and legislation.
Our first bill that we got passed was the Jordan McNair Safety Protection Act, and that's a bill in Baltimore City that we partner with the Department of Parks and Recreation in Baltimore City, Department of Social Services. Basically, what that billing entails is every parent-coach or coach or program that rents the Department of Parks and Recreation in Baltimore City's facilities have to be trained on all type of safety measures, safety equipment, and how to identify whether a child is being abused or not.
The last bill that we just got passed was the Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act. That particular bill, the health and wellness component of the Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act, goes in effect ... it was just signed by Governor Hogan. One of the things I'd like to back up because it just wasn't as easy as saying, "Hey, we're going to add Jordan's name to a bill and we're going to get it passed." The bill didn't get out of the House last year.
This time it passed through the House unanimously, with some addendums, in regards to what was first, which is the health and safety of a student-athlete. It went through the Senate and it passed unanimously there.
Basically what that legislation does is it requires that athletic programs adopt guidelines to prevent heat illness, brain injury, and rhabdomyolysis, a syndrome that occurs when damaged muscle fibers enter the bloodstream. The bill also adds exercise and supervision guidelines for athletes with sickle cell trait or asthma.
One of the main things that the Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act discusses or protects student-athletes from any type of medical conditions in regards to brain injury, concussions. One of the big things is a student-athlete wouldn't have to worry about losing their scholarship in the event that they had a concussion or they wouldn't have to worry about being in a rush to return to playing prior to them being ready or being medically advised to return to play.
One of the big things with young people is a lot of young people are so fearful of losing their scholarships that, at times, basically, they'll kind of come back at the discretion of an athletic trainer, or an overzealous athletic trainer, or an overzealous member of the coaching staff that may be telling them they're ready, when obviously they don't feel as though they're physically ready to come back. Or they just don't feel that they're emotionally or mentally ready to come back.
One of the big things about this bill, this protects their actual scholarship in the event that this did happen.
When this legislation was passed, this was significant for the Jordan McNair Foundation. We've had a lot of victories within the last 3 years, but especially every time we get safety legislation passed to protect student-athletes.
I speak to all parents when I say that our journey has been long, and hard, and painful, and emotional to say the least. However, I like to think that we continue to keep Jordan's legacy alive by educating and saving the lives of others.
Check out other stories from the Resilience episode, including "Balancing Medicine and Country Music Stardom" and "The Power of Social Media"
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