2020 SI Sportsperson of the Year: Laurent Duvernay-Tardif
Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif spent the first four years of his NFL career balancing football with medical school. When an opportunity came to join the frontlines of the healthcare system in its fight against COVID-19, the 2020 Super Bowl champion answered the call.
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:04 For me, it's always kind of been an ambition to,
00:09 five years from now, not be defined as a football player.
00:16 I love playing football, but I also wanna use that platform
00:21 to promote a message that's greater than just football.
00:26 And I think that's almost a responsibility that we have as athlete.
00:30 And a lot of athlete did it for the Black Lives Matter movement this year.
00:35 A lot of athlete did it for the right to vote.
00:39 And I feel like for me, my calling is medicine.
00:41 And right now we're going through a pandemic.
00:45 And five years from now, I don't wanna be looking back at this year
00:49 and saying, well, I could have helped.
00:51 I could have done something about it.
00:53 I really felt like I needed to be here and to try to help to the best of my ability.
00:58 [MUSIC]
01:01 The game is over and the Chiefs' kingdom has firmly planted its flag
01:08 on top of football's highest summit.
01:12 It's just hard to believe that the Super Bowl was in 2020.
01:16 I kind of see the Super Bowl as the last time that we were actually able
01:19 to celebrate a huge accomplishment together.
01:25 You know, you work all your life in order to win that Super Bowl,
01:29 and then you wanna enjoy it.
01:31 You wanna optimize and take advantage of the accomplishment.
01:36 And then everything is kind of taken away from you.
01:39 And that mindset that was really egocentric quickly went from,
01:45 "Dude, that's terrible for me," to, "That's terrible for everybody."
01:49 And there's people that are suffering a lot more than me from the virus
01:54 and the consequence of the virus.
01:56 And how can I help? How can I contribute?
01:59 How can I be part of the solution?
02:03 I think my passion for medicine actually came before my passion for football.
02:07 It's a great challenge to be able to know the science,
02:11 diagnose somebody, but then build a treatment plan that is custom-made
02:17 for the socioeconomical context of that specific patient.
02:20 And that's the art of medicine, and that's really what drives me.
02:25 Back in 2014, actually, when I was doing my pre-draft visit,
02:28 Kansas City, like Coach Reed was actually one of the only ones
02:32 who saw the whole medical school thing as a positive thing.
02:36 And instead of asking about if I was gonna be committed enough
02:40 to learn the playbook and make all the sacrifice to be a professional athlete
02:44 because I had medical school on the side, he was like,
02:47 "If you're here, even though you have medical school,
02:49 it's because you love football."
02:51 And he said he was gonna help me and support me.
02:54 Every offseason, I would fly back home.
02:58 I would start my training.
03:00 And when I graduated in 2018,
03:02 I really felt like Coach Reed was a big part of that moment.
03:09 Today is my seventh shift at the long-term care facility.
03:14 Another big one, that's for sure.
03:17 Even though I had my MD, I was not enrolled in a residency program,
03:21 so working as a doctor was out of the picture.
03:24 And then there was a question of, can I still go back and help in other ways?
03:29 Like, for me, it was clear that I needed to be part of that movement,
03:33 going back and helping in the long-term care facility.
03:36 And I signed up for the program.
03:39 In a long-term care facility,
03:41 you get to see the same patient over and over,
03:44 and you get to know them.
03:46 As part of my job as an orderly, you get to, like, feed them,
03:50 change them, wash them, give them their medication.
03:54 My mindset was really the one of a medical student.
03:57 Like, I was trying to optimize my day,
04:00 go by as quickly as possible, to do as many things as possible.
04:03 And what I came to realize after working there a few days
04:06 is that your job is not to optimize everything at all costs.
04:12 It's also to take the time,
04:14 like take the time to embrace that role that you have,
04:18 where you're not only a doctor or a nurse,
04:22 you're also the patient's closest friend in that challenging time,
04:27 because they don't see anybody else.
04:29 And I think it's our job to do everything we can
04:32 and make sure that they preserve their dignity,
04:34 because at the end of the day, that's all they got.
04:38 The decision of opting out from the 2020 season
04:41 was for sure one of the toughest ones I had to make in my life.
04:45 And looking back at it, I feel like it was motivated
04:50 by a lot of different factors.
04:52 I want to play football next year.
04:54 I just felt like this year,
04:56 there were other things more important than football going on.
05:00 And it was really a personal decision.
05:03 I'm not saying that every player should have opted out
05:06 or that we shouldn't play football right now.
05:08 Sport is super important in our society.
05:10 It's more than just football.
05:13 It's also a connective tissue, and that's really, really powerful,
05:17 and we need that right now.
05:19 What I'm saying is that for me,
05:22 with my background and with what I was able to provide,
05:27 it would have been nonsense not to go back and help.
05:31 I'm not like a superhero.
05:33 I just made the same decision that thousands of people made,
05:37 like retired teachers, nurses, doctors,
05:40 that went back and helped at the front line.
05:43 And I made the same decision.
05:46 The only thing is that I was playing football
05:49 for the Kansas City Chiefs, and I just won the Super Bowl.
05:52 But that action of making a sacrifice
05:54 for the greater good of the community
05:57 was recognized by the football fans and by the sport community,
06:00 and that's amazing.
06:02 I'm really receiving this award on the behalf
06:05 of all the health care workers,
06:07 and I want to say thank you to them on my behalf,
06:10 but I'm sure on the behalf of everybody who's watching this,
06:13 every athlete.
06:15 We're able to go about our lives right now
06:18 because there are people making sacrifices,
06:21 and I think it's important to acknowledge them.
06:24 And that's why I'm really grateful to receive this award,
06:28 but more so to do it in their names.
06:32 [music playing]
06:35 [Music]