OK, so technically January is actually “National Stalking Awareness Month,” but I refuse to acknowledge it2. It turns out that there is no nationally recognized month for Ray Lewis awareness prevention yet3, but I think we can all agree that perhaps there should be.
No, not because of the whole accused-of-murder thing. Not because he always seems to find a way to impose his religious beliefs on the general public4. And certainly not because I’m a Steelers fan or something.
Mostly, it’s because I don’t think that I can watch Monday Night Football anymore if ESPN continues to insist on making checks out to the television equivalent of a Jehovah’s Witness knocking on your door5. I mean, c’mon, Ray — if I wanted to hear all the reasons why I should accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior for 90 minutes, I’d be in church this Sunday, instead listening to you blabber on about psalms or whatever while I wait for the games to start and try to eat my weight in ribs6.
I will admit that Lewis has been better about nonsensical sermons since he’s been on the other side of the interviews. I’ll also admit that he’s not even the worst commentator that I’ve ever seen7. But I can only assume that the FCC has something to do with his new-found control.
What the FCC couldn’t control, however, was what Lewis said to the Buffalo Bills in the locker room before their game against the New England Patriots earlier this season.
On the surface, a coach bringing in a former player to pump up his squad before a game seems like a perfectly fine thing to do. Standard, even. But when the same player goes on national television the next night to analyze that same team in a game that he now clearly has a rooting interest in, you have to question his motives… right?8
Now if Coastal Point Editor Darin McCann has taught me anything, it’s that a sports journalist must always remain impartial9. Any newsman’s job really, is to keep themselves out of the story and report what happened — not what they think about what happened.
Like a coach bringing in a former player for a pep talk… On the surface, that seems pretty cut-and-dry. But at the same time, just like coaches and players and referees, reporters are all first and foremost, human beings10. And at one point, those human beings were, first and foremost, simply football fans.
After the news came out of his pep talk, people were outraged that Lewis would have the audacity to pick the Bills on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown. Patriots fans could not believe that an ESPN anchor, working for the most respected sporting news outlet in the world11, would allow such an ethical abomination12.
But, clearly, the townspeople who went for their pitchforks and torches failed to consider the whole “beneath the surface is really just a fan” thing I was talking about like two paragraphs and like 50 footnotes ago. Before Ray Lewis was Ray Lewis—ESPN analyst, Ray Lewis was Ray Lewis—Baltimore Ravens linebacker. Before that, he was Ray Lewis—University of Miami Hurricane. And somewhere in there, he was simply Ray Lewis—football fan13.
The same thing can be said for the NFL referee who got fired for posting a Facebook selfie wearing his Saints jersey14, or when legendary Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka has to break down a game between the Bears and the Packers, or when countless other former coaches and countless other former players have to be objective about teams with which they have long impacting histories.
This is, of course, is commonplace in not just the NFL but in every sport and at every level. How about the DIAA referee who went to Indian River and has to call a game where they face Sussex Central? How about when Coastal Point photographer Chris Clark, who went to Salesianum but did not graduate from there (for reasons he will not disclose15), shoots games when Sallies plays Indian River?
Even if there are no ties to either team, it’s against human nature not to, in some way, pull for one side or the other. We’re just not wired to not care. Maybe you’re watching a game and you identify with the play style of a certain player. Maybe you decide you like one team’s mascot better than the others. And god knows we all like a good underdog story16.
All things considered, it’s really hard to blame Lewis for trying to be an impartial member of the media and a human being at the same time. If he did it again, with a different team, I don’t think I could blame him for that, either.
I guess, at the end of the day, all you can do as a sports journalist is just try to do your best, just like anything else.
What I can most certainly blame Lewis for, however, is pretty much all the other things that may or may not warrant an eventual National Ray Lewis Prevention Month17, and for a speech that probably sounded an awful lot like all of his other speeches, and which in all likelihood was mostly riddled with bombastic babble and went something like: “OK — so by a show of hands… who here has not yet accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior?”
Either way, if I were Bill Billichick, I’d definitely start having Ray Lewis give speeches to the team we were playing against every week18. I mean, whatever he said in that locker couldn’t have been all that inspiring anyway. After all the uproar, and all of struggling-to-be-impartial media members who weighed in on the importance of remaining impartial as a member of the media, the Bills ending up losing to the Patriots, 20-13.
Footnotes:
1 January is also the month that I learned how to use footnotes [as well as the month his editors decided to take away his superscripting privileges — plain text from now on, boy-o...]
2 On an unrelated note, I also refuse to acknowledge the restraining orders that Elena Delle Donne’s attorney keeps sending.
3 Yet there’s a National Celiac Awareness Month? Has the person making up these awareness months ever met anyone with celiac? Trust me, if they’re gluten-free, they’re gonna make you aware of it.
4 (Made-up potentially clarifying example) Reporter: “So, Ray, in terms of X’s and O’s, how do you think your defense will adjust moving from the 4-3 to the 3-4?” Ray Lewis: “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.” Reporter: “Right… Hey, is Flacco still around, or…?”
5 Probably while you’re trying to watch a football game.
6 This would equate to roughly 165 pounds of ribs.
7 I honestly can’t even understand what Lou Holtz is saying like 99 percent of the time. Also, I am like 99 percent sure that Cris Carter has Asperger’s.
8 Maybe… I’m not gonna tell you yet, LOL.
9 Please do not tell him about the green-and-gold flannel pajama pants I got for Christmas and am probably going to start wearing to games.
10 This excludes New England Patriots’ head coach Bill Billichick.
11 Second only to the Coastal Point newspaper. Established, 2004. Headquarters: Ocean View, Del. Stock ticker symbol: N/A.
12 They could also not believe that, for once, there was an NFL scandal not directly involving the Patriots.
13 Notice my impressive restraint in not making a lazy and tasteless joke like, “…and somewhere else in there he was Ray Lewis—suspected murderer, LOL.” I totally could have done that.
14 Dude — big mistake. Everyone knows that Instagram has way better selfie filters.
15 I think I speak for everyone when I say that, honestly, we’d rather not know anyway.
16 See: “Rudy,” “The Karate Kid,” “Bad News Bears” (1976), “Moneyball” featuring Brad Pitt and America’s sweetheart, Jonah Hill, Disney’s “The Mighty Ducks,” Disney’s “D2: The Mighty Ducks,” “Raging Bull,” “Rocky” 1-7, pretty much any other boxing movie ever made, “Bad News Bears” (2005), Disney’s “D3: The Mighty Ducks, Any Given Sunday,” pretty much any other movie made in the late ’90s, “Dodgeball: An Underdog Story,” “Kicking & Screaming,” featuring legendary Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka, and, of course, the most impressive tale of overcoming adversity ever told: “Air Bud” (he was a dog, for god’s sake).
17 (patent pending)
18 I’d also take a Zoloft, or at least, like, drink a Diet Coke or something, before press conferences.