A 14-year-old Baltimore-area boy who spent more than 1,000 days fighting leukemia will step onto the field at M&T Bank Stadium this weekend and ring a bell, a small ceremony marking the end of a battle that began when he was still a young child. Hudson Gatton, now a high school freshman, will take part in the Ravens' Crucial Catch game against the Tennessee Titans, an NFL-wide event built around cancer prevention, early detection, and honoring survivors.
According to WBAL-TV 11, Hudson was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and endured more than 1,000 days of chemotherapy, spinal taps, bone marrow aspirates, and hospital stays before completing his final dose of chemo and being declared cancer-free in April 2018. Hudson told the station the news that he would ring the bell on the field left him confused at first, and his mother, Tamara Gatton, said the moment initially did not register for him either. Today, Hudson plays JV soccer, carries honor roll grades, and is a big brother, and he said the Crucial Catch game matters deeply to people affected by cancer.
A Family's Long History of Giving Back
Hudson and Tamara Gatton will join more than 30 MedStar Health cancer patients, their guests, and cancer healthcare workers on the field Sunday, where the mother and son will unfurl the U.S. flag before kickoff, the same report notes. Tamara Gatton works as a lead cancer nurse with MedStar Health, giving the family's appearance a professional as well as personal dimension. It is not the pair's first act of advocacy for pediatric cancer patients: back in November 2020, Hudson and his mother partnered with Resilience Gives to donate comfortable hospital socks to children undergoing treatment at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, according to WUSA9.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common form of pediatric cancer, but treatment advances over recent decades have pushed the five-year relative survival rate for pediatric patients to roughly 90%, per the National Cancer Institute. That survival context places Hudson's recovery within a broader medical trend that has transformed outcomes for children diagnosed with the disease.
MedStar's Long-Running Role With the Ravens
MedStar Health has served as the official medical provider for the Ravens since 2004, and the two organizations extended that partnership through 2035 in July 2025, according to the Baltimore Ravens. Beyond assigning team physicians and orthopedists to the Ravens roster, MedStar operates five designated first aid stations throughout M&T Bank Stadium to treat fans during home games.
The Ravens and MedStar also extend their partnership into the offseason, hosting pediatric cancer patients at the Under Armour Performance Center during summer training camp, where young patients get pre-season access to players like Zay Flowers along with custom gifts and locker room tours ahead of the fall Crucial Catch events, per MedStar Health. During Crucial Catch home games, M&T Bank Stadium also holds a stadium-wide placard moment at the first-half two-minute warning, when fans raise “Today I Honor” cards to recognize loved ones impacted by cancer, a tradition Hoodline previously covered during the 2024 Darkness Falls game.
A National Campaign Behind the Local Moment
Since launching in 2009, the NFL's Crucial Catch initiative, run in partnership with the American Cancer Society, has raised more than $38 million and supported over 1.1 million cancer screenings in under-resourced communities, according to the NFL. The league schedules its annual Crucial Catch games across Weeks 4 through 6 of the regular season, using multi-colored field graphics and merchandise to represent awareness for multiple cancer diagnoses, an expansion of the campaign's original pink-only breast cancer branding.
Funds raised through Crucial Catch support American Cancer Society CHANGE grants, which are distributed directly to community health centers and hospital systems in all 32 NFL team markets to expand screening access for breast, cervical, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. The organization also notes that the five-year survival rate for many common cancer types exceeds 90% when the disease is caught in its early stages, before it has a chance to spread, underscoring the medical rationale behind the screening-focused campaign.
For Hudson Gatton, Sunday's appearance folds a personal milestone into that larger public health effort. The Ravens' Crucial Catch game against the Titans will honor cancer survivors broadly, but it is Hudson's bell-ringing and the flag unfurling with his mother that will put a familiar, local face on a campaign built around early detection and long recoveries.
