1997: Gunnar cheering for his dad in Cincinnati. 2008: Gunnar in his own game at Friends Academy. If Gunnar’s attitude isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what is….”Maybe my mission in life is to advance knowledge of the disease for other people,” Gunnar says.
The clock was ticking. In the stands at Friends Academy Sept. 20, Boomer Esiason had one eye on the football field and one eye on his watch.
The home team trailed Roosevelt 26-0, affording his 17-year-old son Gunnar, the backup quarterback at Friends, a potential opportunity for some playing time. But Boomer, as part of his duties for Sunday’s NFL pregame show on CBS, also had an imminent business appointment in New Jersey to interview Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer.
“I gave Sydney the camera,” Boomer said, referring to his 16-year-old daughter. “I told her, ‘I’ve got to leave soon. I’ve got to go to Jersey. If I have to leave before he gets in the game, you’ve got to take the pictures.’ So I’m sitting there and I’m sitting there … and he goes into the game.”
Gunnar Esiason — a week removed from serious complications in his ongoing battle against cystic fibrosis that kept him out of uniform in the team’s opener Sept. 12 — promptly led the Quakers on a scoring drive that concluded with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Alex Zisfein. It was the second touchdown pass of Gunnar’s varsity career and the first in front of his father, the former Jets and Bengals quarterback.
“I had been talking to him all week about whether I should even try to play in the game,” said Gunnar, who missed the team’s opener because he had to endure a procedure known as a bronchoscopy Sept. 10 in which a tube was placed down his throat to draw out the mucus in his chest so he could breathe normally. “He said, ‘See how you feel in the warm.ups.’ I felt like I was good to go. I played and it happened so fast, I was like ‘Oh, wow! A touchdown pass right away!’ He was there and it was a really good moment.”
Not just for Sydney and Boomer Esiason — Gunnar’s mom, Cheryl, missed that game but was an eyewitness to his first TD pass last season — but for the entire Friends team and coaching staff. “Everyone went crazy,” Gunnar said. “It was cool because I don’t know who was happier, me or the rest of the team.”
Told of his son’s comment this past week, Boomer, who along with his wife was seated in the small bleachers alongside the Friends Academy soccer field watching Sydney play a varsity match, said quietly, “I’ll tell you something. His parents were really happy, too. And his sister. You know that Sydney doesn’t really get a lot of credit for dealing with all this, but she’s his biggest fan and closest friend in the whole world. When he threw that touchdown pass, she jumped into my arms. She gets so much out of it. It’s a really good story about what he has become.”
What Gunnar Esiason has become is a profile in courage, a poster boy for this serious disease ever since he was pictured on the cover of Sports Illustrated in October 1993, perched on his father’s shoulders. “I don’t have any problems being that person,” he said. “I was born into that spot. Maybe my mission in life is to advance knowledge of the disease for other people.”
It isn’t always easy to do what it takes to live with CF or to overcome it enough to play varsity football, but Gunnar will not be denied. Not even when he suffered a bout of mononucleosis over the summer and then a serious lung infection that put the 2008 season in jeopardy. And not even when he had to have the painful and intense bronchoscopy to drain his lungs, a procedure that left his whole body so drained that he couldn’t even put on his uniform for the opening game. “Missing that game was probably the most frustrating thing I ever had to do,” he said. “I had to stand on the sidelines and that really bothered me.”
Ten days later, there he was throwing a touchdown pass. “When Gunnar got in there, he created one of those magical moments,” Friends coach Ron Baskind said. “He comes in, he completes his first pass and he gets us on a drive. You could just feel it. You could feel something special is going to happen.”
As Baskind recounted what happened Wednesday, he halted several times, overcome with emotion. “We get on the 25. We call a timeout and talk about something we both saw that we thought could work,” he said. “The pass was high but it found its way. is one of our most competitive kids. I knew if there was a way, he would catch it. He went up higher than I thought he ever could go and he held on in the end zone. Probably higher than he could ever jump under normal circumstances. That’s what I mean about the magical stuff.”
Baskind took a deep breath. “I think I’m even sounding emotional now,” he said. “I’m a rather hard-nosed guy, but I become a mush when that happens. I can feel myself tearing up and I’m a mess, you know? It’s one of those great memories for everybody on the team. It becomes a game unto itself when you have this special thing going on. You’ve got this kid fighting to sustain this dream he has and we’ve become part of it.”
That’s because Gunnar has made football — and his other love, ice hockey — a major part of his life. “This, in many ways, is heaven,” Baskind said. “When he’s here playing football, or playing hockey, he’s in a place that’s perfect for him. He’s not going to let anything interfere with that perfection.”
Gunnar is so driven to fight CF and have as normal a life as is humanly possible that he has acquired a professional athlete’s tunnel vision. “When he’s on the football field, the disease is the furthest thing from his mind,” Boomer said. “He’s got such a love of life and of playing football. The lucky thing for us is that he hasn’t hit us with the ‘Why me?’ yet. He hasn’t had that moment yet where he’s been angry at the world.”
No, Gunnar is too busy creating magic moments. Said Baskind, “From Gunnar, all I learn about is courage. The only time I get hints of the disease from him is when it’s absolutely impossible for him to continue. Whether he’s spitting up blood or he’s just so weak because of an infection. Otherwise, he doesn’t bring any of that to the football field.”
Perhaps the real magic is that whenever Gunnar is on the football field, he can make cystic fibrosis vanish.
