COLUMBUS, Ohio — Have you ever tried to draw, free-hand, a perfect circle? Whether by physics or by fault it’s darn near impossible.
Josh Collins, possibly, has done it.
“It’s so awesome,” he said. “It is so awesome to feel like I have a purpose greater than my own.”
The Cincinnati Bengals fan was there that January Monday night in Paycor Stadium, the night Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed.
He was the fan who, while others were taking in the stunned silence, he took out a Sharpie.
The image of Collins in the stands, holding his sign, was captured and shared by the thousands and seen and appreciated by hundreds of thousands on social media.
“I didn’t know that night when I made that sign if that was the last time I would ever see Damar Hamlin,” he said.
Last week, for the first time since the incident, Hamlin hosted a public signing event. Collins and his son weren’t going to miss it. This past Friday they traveled from Canal Winchester to Buffalo.
“Everybody there knew me and knew the sign,” he said. “People in the lobby were asking to get my picture with them [saying] ‘I want to be with the sign guy’, ‘The sign guy’, ‘Here’s the sign guy’.”
The only person who seemingly hadn’t heard about the sign was Hamlin himself.
“And his eyes got big and he thanked me and he shook my hand,” Collins said. “It was so special to get to shake his hand and just listen to him breathe.”
“What you have done in three months…you have completed a perfect circle,” 10TV’s Bryant Somerville said.
“Truly amazing,” Collins said. “Yep. I mean when Damar Hamlin asks me to take my picture with my sign and posted it on his Instagram while I’m standing there, I wanted to cry.”
From being in the stands to standing at his side; a sign that the perfect circle completes when you least expect it.
Collins, who is also a football and baseball coach for the Central Ohio Youth Athletic Association in Canal Winchester, says through the support of Bills Mafia he raised more than $1,100 and that the money has gone towards purchasing an AED for his players.