Saranac Lake native enters 30th season with the NFL | News, Sports, Jobs

Brian McCarthy, a 1986 Saranac Lake graduate and current vice president of communications for the NFL, speaks to the Saranac Lake High School Class of 2018.
(Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

SARANAC LAKE — National Football League spokesman and Saranac Lake native Brian McCarthy was sitting at home in New Jersey on Jan. 2, watching the Buffalo Bills take on the Cincinnati Bengals.

His laptop was open as he responded to media members in real-time, which is typically what he does when watching NFL games.

But during the late stages of the first quarter, the game took a drastic turn when Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field and was given medical treatment for nearly 20 minutes before being taken to a hospital.

“This was different than any other injury,” McCarthy said.

People from all over the world tuned into the game, making it the most-watched Monday Night Football game ever, according to CNN. While people desperately scrolled through social media looking for answers on Hamlin’s status, McCarthy got to work at the forefront of the NFL’s response team.

Since October 1994, McCarthy has been the chief NFL spokesman, making this upcoming football season his 30th with the league. He typically works alongside major media outlets and reporters, while promoting the league’s best practices and policies.

With news constantly breaking, McCarthy said there is never a typical day-to-day routine while working for the NFL.

“At any given moment there is something major happening,” McCarthy said. “Whether it’s at the league office, with the commissioner, the broadcasting department, football operations through the central hub. You’re either making news, breaking news or fixing it.”

When Hamlin collapsed, McCarthy immediately jumped on to a conference call with other members of the NFL department and stayed in touch with NFL chief football administrator, Dawn Aponte, who not only sits across the hall from him but was on the ground in Cincinnati.

“If you go back and look at some of the footage, she was literally standing with her phone in the air,” McCarthy said. “She’s talking with both coaches while getting back to league offices and the commissioner.”

Once the NFL determined that the game would be postponed — and later canceled — McCarthy was the one who put out a statement on behalf of the league.

“We were waiting for the players from both teams to weigh in,” he said. “We put out a statement and did a conference call, which I arranged from my couch after the game. That started at midnight. That was about 60 of the national media that I knew on a daily basis.

“We got patched into the stadium where media were still up and in the press box,” he added. “We did a conference call, with some of our league executives, to explain what we knew, what we didn’t know and what was going to happen next. That was an unbelievable night that no one will forget.”

Shortly after the conference call, McCarthy took a quick nap before returning to the NFL offices. By 7 a.m., the televisions in his office were showing the morning news, which of course led off with the Hamlin incident.

“(Hamlin) was almost a virtual collective waiting world around the globe, because people wanted to see and hear about his status,” McCarthy said. “(People were) literally cheering as news came in from the Bills about his status and progress. Secondarily was, ‘What are we going to do with that game and that week?’ That was a story that people are comfortable talking about now because it was a success story. It was based on the hard work and preparation that people within the medical community had in place over the years.

“Our rule was to get all of the facts and then the second part of that was the football side of it,” he added. “Which was the last thing we were concerned about at that time. That was a story that transcended sports.”

While the Hamlin situation was one of the largest stories to happen in his tenure with the league, he said the constant news flow from day to day is what keeps him so invested in his job.

“I’m a news junkie and always have been,” he said.

McCarthy attended Saranac Lake High School and was a three-sport athlete, playing football, hockey and baseball. After graduating in 1986, he went on to receive an English degree from St. Lawrence University.

During his collegiate years, his love for the news developed when he interned at the Adirondack Daily Enterprise over the summer.

While interning, McCarthy wrote little league baseball and softball stories, while occasionally covering events like the Tupper Lake Tinman.

“I was the typical kid, who would wait to get the Enterprise in the afternoon and devour it from front to back, partly because my father (Ed McCarthy) was a Harrietstown councilman,” McCarthy said.

After graduating college, he worked at the Malone Telegram for a year, before working at a newspaper in Newburgh, followed by a job at a sports business magazine in New York City before eventually finding a job with the NFL.

“I had no public relations background when I started here,” McCarthy said. “But I simply never left. There has been a lot of great memories (here).”

In his tenure, he has attended — or, as McCarthy put it, “worked” every Super Bowl — since he started, which is nearly half of all of the Super Bowls. He has also had the opportunity to work alongside, some of his childhood heroes like Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino.

“I have a lot of favorite moments,” he said. “From helping the (New Orleans) Saints return to the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, which was 2006. Knowing what we had gone through — in 2005 — with the hurricane there and not thinking that an NFL franchise would be in New Orleans. But being on the field for the pregame activities and out with fans literally coming up to NFL employees and hugging us, because not only was football back, but the community was back.

“Some of the most meaningful times, I’ve had at the NFL aren’t necessarily talking about the X’s and O’s, or a new stadium being developed,” he added. “It’s about interactions with fans and how much the game of football means to them. One of the fun things rewarding parts, I’m able to do is identifying who the families — or people — who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the Super Bowl and calling them up and saying, ‘Would you like to go to the Super Bowl?’”

McCarthy’s love for the game of football started when he was in high school.

“There was no flag football, there was no youth football,” he said. “The first time you could play was either in seventh or eighth grade depending on your age. I started in eighth grade.”

McCarthy was coached by both John Raymond and Larry Ewald — “I was a ‘Betweener,’” he said. McCarthy said to this day he uses what he learned from his varsity football career.

“I learned certainly on the field, but it was also more of off the field of hard work, determination and perseverance,” he said. “Literally pulling yourself off the ground. Using my background immensely at the NFL. I’m fortunate to still see football through the lens of a high school kid in Saranac Lake.”

To this day, McCarthy still follows the Saranac Lake High School football team and he isn’t the only person from the NFL offices to keep up with their alma mater.

In 2010, Saranac Lake’s varsity football team faced off against Bronxville in the state semifinals. McCarthy drove to Kingston to root for the Red Storm.

On the Bronxville side happened to be his boss, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was there cheering on the school he graduated from.

“(Goodell) went up with his wife and his twins. I went up with my son and at halftime, we met,” McCarthy said. “Saranac Lake lost on the field but had three times the fans in the stands. So we had a good ribbing about that.”

McCarthy said that football brings people together unlike any other property. His love and commitment to the game is why he and other members of the NFL offices take on players’ issues, including concussions and other brain injuries.

“The evolution of science has really what is driving everything behind or procedures and our policies and equipment,” he said. “The progress has come and (the NFL has) been at the forefront of leading that with helping researchers learn more about impacts. We’ve spent a lot of time with scientists who look at equipment and ‘How do we evolve helmets?’”

While playing football for Saranac Lake back in the late 1980s, McCarthy said he even suffered concussions.

“I can certainly pinpoint, so I do have that knowledge, but then again it was high school football,” he said. “The coaches certainly had the best interest in the mind of young athletes, but the science community didn’t know much about brain injuries.”

McCarthy also noted that since the Hamlin incident, the NFL has made it a point of interest to provide CPR training courses.

“That’s something we’ve seen grown around the world,” he said. “That’s something good to come out of (his situation), along with Damar being with us and the impact he’s having.”

In recent years, the NFL has taken the initiative to engage other groups of athletes in the game of football. In doing so, NFL teams like the New York Giants donated $30,000 in the spring to support schools that started a girls’ flag football program.

McCarthy said he was well aware that Saranac Lake created a varsity girls flag football team and he was excited to see the sport expand at his alma mater.

“Football is for everyone,” he said. “It teaches us the values of hard work, perseverance and determination. There is nothing like standing in a huddle before a play. It really has the attributes it’s great to see that expand.”

McCarthy recalled being one of the coaches during the Pumpkin Bowl — an annual girls flag football tournament put on by the Saranac Lake High School during homecoming week.

“There were some tremendous athletes. I was always like, “Let’s just play some football,’” he said. “It’s a testament to the hard work of organizers and people like Eric Bennett (Saranac Lake’s varsity football coach) and others who understand the value of football and want to make it accessible for everyone.”