ESPN always shows the struggle; this time, it’s mine

By Gunnar Esiason

CULTURE | BIOTECH

Photo by Uzair Kashif on Unsplash

December 18, 2024

When I was a junior in high school, I was featured in a brief vignette on the debut season of ESPN’s documentary series, E60. The reason? I threw a touchdown pass in my first year on the varsity football team. It was a big deal because I have cystic fibrosis. 

If I’m being honest, I was totally undersized to play the sport that has meant so much to my family. But I was a determined kid, so my teammates and I practically willed it to happen. It was the kind of moment that reminds us why we all love sports. It was an overcoming the odds type of story that often runs on SportsCenter. You know, the kind that leaves you with a smile before you rush out the door to work or to drop off the kids at school.

That time in my life feels a little bit like ancient history now – sort of like how the Patriots and their dynasty is all but a distant memory – because for so many of us, cystic fibrosis was a totally different disease back then.

Now, all these years later, ESPN is back in my life with a full-fledged documentary coming to the flagship sports network on Christmas Eve. It’s as surreal now as it was back in high school.

But what’s even crazier? Science itself is being covered on ESPN! 

My family and I might be the subject, but this documentary is really about the triumph of science, motivated families, hopeful patients, and the curious scientists and doctors who dedicate their lives to a disease that often killed patients before adulthood. It’s about conquering a disease. It’s about one of the greatest medical achievements of the past few decades (maybe all time, but I’m biased). 

And it’s about time we’re showing something like this on ESPN. It’s about time we’re showing it anywhere.

Because science, like sports, is all about the struggle. And ESPN shows us the struggle every day – the athletes, the coaches, the strategy, the injuries, the camaraderie. Hell even the talking heads yelling at one another about whether Joe Flacco is or was an elite quarterback is part of the struggle. (Joe Flacco was not elite, but he has raised a boat load of money for cystic fibrosis research, so he’s elite in my book.)

In science and in particular in the drug development industry, we are not particularly good at showing the struggle. Every now and then you get something that breaks through, because it affects all of us. The space race. Covid vaccines. But those are few and far between. 

I’m glad that the cystic fibrosis story is breaking through now. In a lot of ways, the story shows the small part my family played in this crusade. My dad wielded the kind of celebrity that only comes with being the quarterback for the New York Jets, and he and my family used it to do everything we could to change the world. And alongside the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Vertex, and the tens of thousands of CF families across the globe, we did. 

The CF story isn’t over. There’s more to do, and the drug that has turned my life around unfortunately doesn’t help everyone with our disease. But telling the story of how far we have come can teach the industry how important it is to show America the struggle. To get them rooting for the scientists, the doctors, the clinical trial participants, the drug development teams and yeah, even the executives arguing over valuations or whether such and such drug candidate is elite. 

It’s all part of the struggle. Drug development needs a pylon cam, a go-pro strapped to skier at the top of the halfpipe, and a Hard Knocks following a mediocre NFL team with a charismatic foul-mouthed coach in the offseason.

The Trikafta Phase 3 clinical trial is my personal version of the Miracle on Ice after years of skating Herbies at practice. Or the MJ Flu Game. Or the Philly Special (which my Philadelphia-based colleague says is a historic play). Or Josh Allen doing whatever he did that particular weekend. But to some extent what you’re going to see on ESPN on Christmas Eve is not just the famous play, but the blood, sweat and tears (literally) that we all spent working towards it. 

You’ll also see the games that went into the loss column. The trials that almost always ended in failure. The patients who are the true medical pioneers that sign up for clinical trials and who sacrifice our time, our bodies, our hopes. We don’t always win, and for a while there it felt like I was playing for the New York Jets with one loss after the next. Not all the plays or the players are famous. But they’re the most fundamental part of the struggle. 

So tune in! Tell your friends and colleagues and families to tune in. I hope you’re moved by it. 

And if you’re in drug development, try to think of some way to share your own personal struggle. So many of us are in biotech because it’s personal. We all have our reasons: whether we do it for the childhood friend with cystic fibrosis, or the uncle with ALS, or the grandparent with Alzheimer’s, or the classmate who succumbed to childhood leukemia. Celebrate your big wins, sure, but let the public in on what it took to get there. 

And if you haven’t won yet, that’s a story worth telling, too. It’s the story I was listening to when I was coughing up blood in the middle of one of a thousand sleepless nights. I wanted to know that someone, somewhere was working on something to save me.