They grew up less than 3 miles apart, but it took tragedies and a 2,500-mile trip for Augustus “Slim Gus” Clarke and Jillian Hanesworth to spark a friendship.
The Buffalo natives had long admired each other’s work on social media. The young careers of Clarke, a producer-director for NFL 360 in Los Angeles, and Hanesworth, the City of Buffalo’s inaugural poet laureate, dovetailed in a short film “Still Here: The Bond Between a Heartbroken City and Its Beloved Football Team.”
"I'm so angry," WNY Peace Center Executive Director Deidra EmEl said, speaking through tears. "We should be angry every day, angry every day that our children and our brothers are dying in the street. Because it's happening – we just don't see it."
The 3½-minute video for NFL 360 – produced and directed by Clarke, and starring Hanesworth reciting her poetry, was nominated last week for a Sports Emmy Award.
Winners will be announced May 21 in New York City by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
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“Still Here” is one of five finalists for the “Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award – Short Form.” The category also includes Kyle Brandt’s CBS series on “NFL Today”; “Sunday Night Football” on NBC and Peacock; a Fox piece on Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy; and another NFL 360 production, “The Chief Who Walked the Sea.”
It took shared agony for Clarke’s creative vision to dovetail with Hanesworth’s powerful storytelling. It came from heartbreaking events tied to their hometown but felt far beyond: the May 14, 2022, racist killings at a Tops supermarket and the fear and fatalities the 2022 Christmas weekend blizzard wrought, and, last year, the workplace death of Buffalo Firefighter Jason Arno and the cardiac arrest in Cincinnati of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, watched by millions on national TV.
It also took their pride in the toughness and togetherness of Buffalo’s responses.
California torment
Clarke’s physical distance from Buffalo took an emotional toll. He felt helpless while he was unsure whether his mother had been in Tops on Jefferson Avenue on May 14, 2022. She wasn’t.
He recalled the struggles reaching his mother and brother during the Christmas blizzard when they lost electricity and shut off their phones for a time to conserve battery power. His Facebook feed was strewn with Buffalonians asking for help.
“I had to do something,” he said. “I had to get it out of my head.”
Early in the summer, Clarke pitched a concept to his team, overseen by Trent Cooper, creative director of NFL 360, whom Clarke described as a mentor.
The idea was simple: Show how the ability of the Buffalo Bills to bring people together demonstrates the city’s hopeful spirit – even amid an onslaught of crushing events.
“In Buffalo, the Bills bring all walks of life together,” Clarke said. “You could be a blue alien.”
NFL 360 is an ongoing video series produced by the National Football League. Its producers also contribute to the NFL Network, the league’s TV platform.
The acclaimed series connects NFL teams or players to an off-the-field storyline, such as how a blind, terminally ill fan inspired the Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, or how Indianapolis Colts defensive end Kwity Paye escaped war-torn Liberia and endured a difficult start in America to become a pro football player.
NFL 360 leads sports programs with 11 Emmy nominations this year, and Clarke is fresh off winning his first Emmy in 2023 for “The Indelible Legacy of Jimmy Raye,“ a piece on the Black quarterback for Michigan State who won a national title and broke barriers for a generation of players and coaches.
After his Buffalo idea was embraced, the producer-director said the next three months became a blur.
He felt a calling to do the work. The biggest task was finding a narrator for his project. He reached out to Hanesworth, whom he had never met in person, to pitch the idea and ask if she would send a recording.
She obliged, and “Still Here” gained momentum.
“It was heavy on my heart,” Clarke said. “It was therapeutic to do this project for the city.”
‘She nailed it’
“Still Here” was far from the first time that Hanesworth, who until early this year served as the City of Buffalo’s first official poet laureate, was asked to convey through spoken word an entire city’s grief and resilience. It is not a responsibility she takes lightly.
Jillian Hanesworth is Buffalo's poet laureate. In 2021, she was honored to be named as the first in the city's history to the role. "It's not a crown. It's a service," she said.
“Everything about 5/14 has been hard to write,” said Hanesworth, who is also part of a new exhibition at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, “Before and After Again,“ about the mass shooting. “It makes me very nervous.
“How do you balance a hopeful message against the backdrop of wounds that may still be raw? Or, in Hanesworth’s words, “How do you make it about football without normalizing the pain?”
Her words, she said, “flowed out so quickly and easily.”
They gripped Clarke when he heard them in person in mid-August at a Buffalo coffee shop.
“She nailed it,” he remembers. “I was at a loss for words.”
The quest was made easier by showcasing staples from the West and East sides that would not typically appear in national content involving the Bills. The clips were not of Niagara Falls, wings dropped into a fryer or rabid fans propelling themselves through tables.
They were of Doris Records, a record store on East Ferry; Doctor Bird’s and the Oakk Room, two food-and-drink businesses on Main Street; and Guercio & Sons on Grant Street and Steve’s Meats on East Delavan, where many Buffalo residents stop for groceries. Barber shops, churches and city fire stations also were featured.
An exhibition at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum brings visual art, poetry and prose together to reflect on the tragic slaying of 10 people at a Tops supermarket on May 14, 2022.
“I don’t want people to watch it and feel sad,” Hanesworth said. “I want people to be proud. I want people not from the East Side to see themselves in that video.”
She said she was grateful that NFL 360 did not “nitpick” the poem or her writing. Clarke said that wasn’t necessary. In fact, NFL 360 took an unusual route in how it portrayed the poet.
“You usually don’t see the voice,” Clarke said. “That is new.”
Emotions
On the last day of shooting “Still Here” in Buffalo, Clarke intentionally closed the shoot with a scene of kids playing football in front of his mother’s house on Glenwood Avenue. He wanted her to be able to see it.
“No one has incorporated the West Side and East Side into a project like this,” said Clarke, who will deliver the commencement address for his alma mater, Hilbert College, in May.
The emotional weight of “Still Here” has remained strong since it debuted the day after the Bills’ loss to the Jets in the season opener.
Hanesworth said she still gets chills watching it.
Clarke said there’s a common refrain he hears from friends in Buffalo.
“I’m a strong man, but I’m crying right now.”
Ben Tsujimoto can be reached at btsujimoto@buffnews.com, at (716) 849-6927 or on Twitter at @Tsuj10.