A vigil site is shown at UNLV Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023 for 20-year-old student-athlete Ryan Keeler, who died Monday.
Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Many in the UNLV community went to bed with a heavy heart Monday, in shock that one of the university’s football players had died unexpectedly. Defensive lineman Ryan Keeler was 20 years old.
In the hours after the school announced his death, tributes came pouring in from teammates to shine a light on what made him special. As former linebacker Austin Ajiake wrote, “Never complained, had a great attitude, showed up and worked every day. He was the kind of teammate you wanted around.”
Keeler, a transfer from Rutgers, was part of the Academic All-Mountain West team last fall after posting a 3.8 grade-point average in pursuit of a degree in business. Just last week, he was named one of the program’s offseason players of the week — he reposted the honor on Twitter with the message “1% each day,” echoing one of the mantras of new coach Barry Odom.
The sorrow I was feeling Monday for someone I never had the pleasure of meeting turned to disappointment and anger early Tuesday when scrolling social media. Keeler’s death hit the national news cycle, and some social media users attributed his death to cardiac arrest from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
It’s frustrating to see uninformed, ignorant people use Keeler’s death to advance their anti-vaccine theories. Using the incident, where the cause of death was still unknown, to justify one’s unwillingness to receive the vaccine is cowardly. That’s a classless take at the expense of an undeserving target, and is downright despicable.
Here’s a sampling of the posts: “Clot shot? Most likely” and “UNLV AND Rutgers required the shots. He played for both.”
And from Dr. Milton Wolf, a physician and failed Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Kansas: “(T)here have been more ‘unexplained’ sudden deaths of young, healthy people in the last two years than in the 50 years prior to the Covid experimental injections. It’s clear what’s happening.”
The most irresponsible post of the dozens, a retweet of a news story by the ultra-conservative outlet Breitbart News: “But it’s not what you think. Doctors are still baffled?”
Baffled? Really?
Let’s be clear: These posts were made before the cause of death was announced — the Clark County coroner said a cause and manner of Keeler’s death remained pending. Equally important: The misinformed had no idea of Keeler’s vaccination status.
The world we live in today is painfully short on respect and sympathy for someone who has died. Death is used as an instrument to advocate for a cause, and not as a moment to remember the departed.
That’s unfair to Keeler, who in less than one year as part of the UNLV team made a tremendous impression, according to memories from those in the program. He deserves better. Same for his brothers in the UNLV program.
“His fanaticism of being great, of outworking who he perceived to be at the top,” wrote David Wedley, the director of student-athlete academic services at UNLV. “It didn’t matter if it was football, academics, friendship. Ryan was predisposed to be searching for greatness, to be elite.”
The similar lack of awareness to advocate for anti-vaccine theories resembles social media posts last month after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was seconds away from dying on the field after going into cardiac arrest following a jarring tackle of a Cincinnati Bengals receiver.
As many joined in prayer with Hamlin’s life hanging in the balance on national television, a select few disgustingly decided it was the appropriate time to theorize about Hamlin having a medical episode because he received the COVID vaccine.
Seventy-six percent of the world’s population received 12.3 billion doses of the vaccine at the end of 2022, according to Bloomberg News. In the U.S., 224,113,439 people, or 68% of the population, are considered fully vaccinated. People receiving those jabs helped limit the spread of the virus, which has allowed the world to return to normalcy with packed stadiums, restaurants and churches — my plans every weekend.
“Despite false claims that COVID-19 vaccines have increased Sudden Athlete Death Syndrome, scientific reviews, medical experts and sports cardiologists have found no association between sudden death in athletes and vaccines,” reported the Public Health Communications Collaborative, which was formed in 2020 to amplify public health messaging on COVID-19 and increase Americans’ confidence in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Let’s continue to remember Ryan Keeler for the impact he made on the UNLV program through his effort to make it better. Here’s hoping we can all get 1% better today, especially those misinformed social media users.
The Associated Press contributed to this column.
