Most courageous person on the field at the Super Bowl may be Erin Andrews

… quietly endured a horrible 2016 

Many men who watch football think that those sideline reporters, always attractive females, are just window dressing, people who know nothing about the game and could not secure a job like that without their looks and gender.

They may look at Erin Andrews a little differently after the recent reports of what she endured in 2016. First, she went through a horrible civil case that she filed against a predator who had stalked her and had taken nude photos of her in her hotel room almost a decade ago.

Then, in October, she had to deal with cervical cancer, a battle that she kept quiet from most people because she wanted her privacy.

That cervical cancer required surgery, but she was back on the sideline with her Fox TV crew five days later, despite the warnings against doing so by her physician. "Should I have been standing for a full game five days after surgery? Let’s just say the doctor didn’t recommend that,” Andrews told Sports Illustrated late last month. “But just as I felt during my trial, sports were my escape. I needed to be with my crew.”

Andrews did miss two tapings of Dancing with the Stars, where she is a co-host, but no NFL games.

She was also determined to keep her condition secret. "Throughout my career, all I’ve ever wanted is to just fit in,” Andrews said in the SI interview. “That I had this extra baggage with the scandal, I didn’t want to be any different. I felt that way about being sick too. I don’t want players or coaches to look at me differently.”

The predator

Sports Illustrated explained Andrews' problem with a predator this way: "In 2008 a stalker followed Andrews to a hotel in Nashville. Michael David Barrett filmed her by altering the peephole in the door to her room. At her civil trial last winter, she relived the incident in horrific detail. Jurors screened the footage. A computer scientist, summoned by Andrews’s lawyers, estimated that 16.8 million people had seen images from the video."

Many men did not understand why that was such a big deal to Andrews and questioned why she should have filed suit in that case. The perpetrator was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Shouldn't that be enough?

Andrews sued Barrett and the two management companies that ran the Nashville Marriott, West End Hotel Partners and Windsor Capital, for $75 million. The jury returned a verdict of $55 in her favor, which was then settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

The money was not important to Andrews: Her dignity was.

Photos devastated her

Nude photos of her were released to the internet in 2009, and Andrews was devastated by the five-minute video. At the court session in July, she said that she broke down when she first saw them, calling her parents to cry, "Dad, I'm naked all over the Internet."

And then the cancer …

Andrews was finally getting her life back together emotionally after the trial and settlement when she went in for an annual examination in Sept. That is when she learned of the cervical cancer.

Fortunately for her, the surgery was successful, and tests later indicated that she is now cancer-free. No radiation or chemotherapy were required.

Andrews, now 38 and engaged to former NHL star Jarret Stoll, was able to focus her efforts on the football season, one that she knew would end with Fox's coverage of the Super Bowl.

She said that she told her physician early that she did not intend to miss any NFL games. “I’m not watching any football games at home. This is [Fox’s] Super Bowl year, and I’m not missing the Super Bowl,” Andrews told the oncologist.

Conclusion

So, I doubt that any of the football players in the Super Bowl have endured what Erin Andrews has over the past year. For that, she should be considered the most courageous person on that field today.