Proverbs 25:21-22 reads: “If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads, and the Lord will reward you.”
If all that’s true, a radio host in Baltimore was recently crushed by a massive pile of burning coals.
Jerry Coleman hosts a sports talk show at 105.7 The Fan. Coleman is not a fan of the city of Buffalo, New York. After a Twitter dispute over whether Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott deserved consideration for the NFL’s coach of the year award for the team’s 10-6 season and playoff appearance, Coleman went on a rant about Buffalo.
After conceding that the city has “better chicken wings,” Coleman said of Buffalo: “They’re a city of losers. They’ve won nothing.”
It was an ugly insult directed at a city that has suffered economically, as well as with its professional sports franchises. Neither the Buffalo Bills nor the Buffalo Sabres have ever won a Super Bowl or Stanley Cup, despite two Stanley Cup Final appearances and four Super Bowl appearances.
You might have expected a slew of online vitriol in return. Bills superfan Del Reid, though, had another idea.
Reid, a co-founder of the Bills Mafia fan “movement,” visited Coleman’s Twitter account and noticed the pinned tweet on top of Coleman’s feed. It asks people to donate to the Alzheimer’s Association because Coleman’s mother has the disease.
Reid asked his 28,000 Twitter followers to donate, posting a link to the Alzheimer’s Association’s donation page: “Instead of insulting the guy, pour your energy into something that will actually make a difference.”
Over two days, almost 300 people from Buffalo donated more than $7,000.
Coleman responded graciously to the outpouring of generosity: “What [western New York] did was unbelievable. It will not be forgotten. There have been a few bad apples spread in there, but for the most part, Bills fans have really stepped up, unnecessarily to be honest.”
Sadly, even though the book of Proverbs says, “the Lord will reward you,” the Bills soon fell to the Houston Texans in the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs. The team hasn’t won a playoff game since 1995, one of the longest streaks in the NFL. As the saying goes, there’s always next year.
