Lessons in teamwork and examples of great personal strength will be everywhere Sunday at the Super Bowl. Some will even occupy the field.
But turn all that rapt attention and unwarranted idolatry outward, away from Brady and Mahomes for just a moment. Glance toward the one-third occupied stands in Tampa. There, some 7,500 health-care workers, full of vaccine and vinegar, will, in a happy reversal of roles, be having their needs tended to this time.
With attendance sorely limited by COVID-19 precautions, the NFL has papered the house with those who persevered through the worst of a pandemic, treating the country and holding its hand through it all. Normally among the most unattainable and expensive of tickets, many of Super Bowl LV’s now are a gesture of appreciation for an essential job well done. For their part, the Falcons are hosting 23 workers from Emory Healthcare and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta – tickets, transportation, lodging, food, drink, the whole shebang.
“I think we’re going to be spoiled. They’re taking very good care of us. It’s nice to kind of be lavished upon,” said Andrea Nowlin, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Children’s Healthcare Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and perhaps the biggest Chiefs fan in the building Sunday.
“This is truly a dream come true, probably my biggest bucket-list checkoff,” added Nowlin, a Kansas City native and the daughter of a long-time Chiefs season ticket holder.
The lucky few were chosen through a random drawing that extended throughout both the Emory and Children’s Healthcare systems. Whoever the lottery favored would represent a profession that has been on the front lines during a truly dire time.
Yeah, of course, the Bucs have come together this year behind Tom Brady. But when Suzanna Jordan, a unit nurse at Emory Decatur Hospital, talks about the efforts of her own team, it resonates in a different, more meaningful way.
“Every nurse on my unit works so hard. From the start of the shift to the end of the shift, we’re going 110%,” she said. She’ll be the one at the Super Bowl wearing Falcons stuff, so at least the team will be represented in the seats.
“Everyone shows up. Everyone’s helped one another, everyone is being flexible,” Jordan added. “When protocols change, when the acuteness of a patient’s condition changes, everyone is jumping in and helping. It’s just a team effort.
“With COVID, everyone has had to change and adapt. I think people have started working together better. Since that has gotten stronger, I feel my nursing and treating patients has improved.”
Difficult to imagine a profession more in need of a weekend to get away, take a deep breath and enjoy. Those who aren’t directly treating COVID patients count, too. Caregiving across the broad medical spectrum didn’t stop because of the virus.
Nowlin, who works with children with blood disorders ranging from cancer to sickle-cell disease, will be leaving behind two jealous young children and a husband. She’s traveling instead with fellow nurse Dori Longley, who won the lottery and chose Nowlin as her plus-one.
Because of Nowlin’s undisguised passion for the Chiefs, “Everyone wanted Andrea to get to the Super Bowl even more than they wanted themselves to get to the Super Bowl,” Longley said.
Last year Nowlin, who lived in K.C. until 2005, had a line on a pair of tickets for the Kansas City-San Francisco Super Bowl. But she ended up giving those to her parents, well, because it was the right and very nurse thing to do. Being a good daughter does pay off, for Karma has rewarded her now.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said of the league’s gesture, “We hope in a small way that this initiative will inspire our country and recognize these true American heroes. This is also an opportunity to promote the importance of vaccination and appropriate health practices, including wearing masks in public settings.”
All those health-care workers attending have had both rounds of their vaccine shots. Amelia Studdard, an emergency department nurse at Emory Decatur Hospital considers that a particularly uplifting moment in her year.
“I was one of the first Emory employees to be vaccinated,” she said. “I was overwhelmed I was chosen to have that big of an impact. As nurses, if we’re not going to be vaccinated because we don’t trust the science or whatever other reasons people give for choosing not to be vaccinated, then the general community is also not going to want to be vaccinated.”
The idea of being honored as heroes seems to strike these workers as a bit odd. But they are just going to have to suck it up and get used to the idea because a Super Bowl is the last place to try to display humility.
“I feel like I show up and do my job every day to the best of my ability,” Studdard said. “I don’t see me as a nurse any more heroic than any other staff I encounter on a day-to-day basis. Everyone has been in the hospital busting it for a year at this point.”
“I would be doing this in a pandemic or without a pandemic, so to be called an American hero is pretty incredible,” Jordan said. “When I started nursing school I never thought about a pandemic or anything like this. I live in Decatur, and I work in Decatur – so to be on the front lines for people in my community is really rewarding.”
What this Super Bowl lacks in number of fans it is making up for in quality.
With a greatly reduced crowd, there is bound to be a greatly muted feel to Sunday’s game. It projects as a Super Bowl with the sound turned down, as difficult as that is to imagine.
But one Atlanta nurse is determined to do her part, as is her habit. “I’m bringing my ‘A’ game,” turbocharged Chiefs fan Nowlin said. “I won’t be able to talk on Monday.” Fine, so long as she recovers quickly because it’s back to some really important work at mid-week.
