Alaina Getzenberg, ESPNMay 21, 2024, 06:02 PM ET
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- Alaina Getzenberg is a staff writer who covers the Buffalo Bills and the NFL. She joined ESPN in 2021. Alaina was previously a beat reporter for the Charlotte Observer and has also worked for CBS Sports and the Dallas Morning News. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. You can follow her via Twitter @agetzenberg.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Krystle Bittner zoomed in on the picture of Keon Coleman to make sure it was really true.
Looking at photos of the Buffalo Bills rookie wide receiver's photo shoot from the NFLPA Rookie Premiere, she noticed that someone had pointed out the bracelets on his wrists.
"I'm like, 'Wait a damn minute,'" Bittner told ESPN.
What she suspected proved accurate upon closer inspection, that Coleman in his Bills uniform was wearing the friendship bracelets from her son, Logan. They mailed the bracelets to the wide receiver at the Bills' facility just a few days prior May 11.
The bracelets are in white, blue and red -- with most of the supplies ordered online, but the colors carefully picked in person to match the Bills' colors. The bracelets -- one with "Let's Go Bills" and the other "Bills" -- were sent with a letter from Logan, who is 10, and a message to Coleman.
The letter welcomed the 33rd overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft to Buffalo, explained how he started making friendship bracelets for players and that he hoped to meet Coleman at camp this year.
He also included a drawing of Coleman in his new uniform scoring a touchdown and some food tips for the 21-year-old, writing, "P.S. the best pizza is Imperial. Try Wegmans Sandwich Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies with the frosting in the middle."
Coleman received the bracelets in one of about a dozen envelopes at his locker that he went through. He was still wearing the bracelets during and after Tuesday's practice, and hasn't taken them off since putting them on.
"I opened [Logan's letter]. I'm like, they fire," Coleman told ESPN. "I couldn't do nothing like that at no [10] years old. I was like, that's creative, and I was appreciative, so I just put 'em on and kept wearing them."
Logan was stunned when he found out Coleman wore his bracelets for the shoot. On Monday morning, he ran upstairs and told his stuffed animals, "Hey guys, 'Keon's wearing my bracelet!'"
The Bittner family, from Spencerport, N.Y., are Bills season-ticket holders, and Krystle has taken a week off work the past two years to go with her son to training camp practices.
Last year, he began making friendship bracelets during camp to give to fans, including bringing a sign that encouraged fans to come get free bracelets. The first player that took a bracelet from him was former Bills receiver Stefon Diggs.
"I think right around that time was when you started seeing other stuff from like Tight End University ... And he does watch NFL stuff on YouTube, so I think he wanted to do a Bills-y adaptation, and it was in the same few months following Damar [Hamlin and his cardiac arrest]," Krystle said. "And he just, I don't know, Damar was very out and vocal about doing things to spread love and he knew it was small. Obviously, giving out friendship bracelets is not going to change the earth in any kind of way, but just doing something nice for other people and he's that kid."
At the first training camp practice, Krystle estimates they brought about 25-30 of the bracelets they made, which were gone in five minutes. Over the whole last year, they made almost 1,000 bracelets, giving some out at games.
Over the past year, they've made bracelets with a variety of messages for specific players, some with messages that have become inside jokes within Bills Mafia, like "Grape Davis" for Gabe Davis and "Little Stitious," for Josh Allen, a noted fan of "The Office." They've given bracelets to players from the active roster to the practice squad.
Logan likes to help out, like wanting to join his mom volunteering at the Micah Hyde Charity Softball Game on Sunday, despite having tickets with his dad in the stands.
The letter was the second Logan has written to a Bills player -- the first was sent last year -- and more are planned. The idea to write letters actually came from Logan struggling to write. Krystle worked with his teachers to find a way for him to practice writing without him really realizing he is doing so.
"I was like, 'Alright, well it's starting to get time to figure out what players we might want to send letters to, and it might do nothing, but the point is to just send them,'" Krystle said. "So, the first player he picked was Keon."
Coleman has become an early favorite in Buffalo despite being a Bill for less than a month. His bright personality has caught attention in a variety of ways, along with his early embrace of Bills fans -- the wide receiver noted a big box of Chips Ahoy also being sent to him at the facility earlier this month.
He reposted the bracelets and letter to his Instagram story on Monday. Krystle expressed happiness for Logan.
"He's a kid that literally gives his entire soul to this team during the season, and ... To have a player recognize his stuff and care enough to put it on is huge for him," Krystle said. "A, he's an only child and B, I think him feeling some type of connection to a player is huge for him. His confidence has gone through the roof in the last year, I would say."
