Wednesday, February 6, 2013

World of Sports Wednesday (1st Edition)

By Matt Brown



            I was lucky enough to the go to the Super Bowl this past weekend. It was everything I was hoping it would be and more. I hopped on the plane Friday morning with my godmother Nancy and rolled into New Orleans almost as excited as Ray Lewis was for the game (Just Kidding). I went in to the weekend committed to rooting for the Ravens over the 49ers, and a huge fan of the before mentioned linebacker Ray Lewis.
             Lewis started his career in 1996 and played his last game this past Sunday. He is regarded by many to be within a group of the best linebackers to ever lace em’ up. He is also one of only two linebackers to ever be rewarded Super Bowl MVP. And no, 1996 isn’t a typo, he has been doing the damn thing for 17 years. The Baltimore Ravens have never existed without Ray Lewis on the roster. Even the people that think he is a tad overrated as a linebacker admit that he is the best motivator to ever have pads on. He revolutionized the pump-up speech. To top it off, he does endless charity work and is extremely religious.
            As those who dislike the Ravens are quick to point out, his career does have a strange blemish. In 2000, after a Super Bowl party in Atlanta there was a brawl that resulted in two men being stabbed to death. Lewis was held for 15 days on charges of murder and then made a plea deal with the prosecutors. He was only charged with obstruction of justice in exchange for testifying against the two people he was with. His two friends were acquitted and no other suspects were ever arrested for the crime. Nobody knows for sure who is innocent and who is guilty, and now it seems that we never will.
            My grandpa was a sports reporter on ESPN back in the day so I got to go behind the scenes at ESPN to see the taping of a show on Saturday. In the process I got to meet sports reporters, sports writers, and just plain sport lovers like Adam Schefter, ESPN’s NFL Insider, and Mike Lupica, the author of books like “Travel Team” and “Heat” which almost every 12 year old guy read at least a chapter of back in the middle school years. So there I was, a huge football and Ray-Ray fan chilling in a room watching Lupica and Schefter toss on make up. The executive producer ran through what was going to be talked about on the show, and Ray Lewis and the murders came up. Mike Lupica seemed passionate on the subject and showed it on air, saying how it says something about the attention span of the sports world and what we care about.
            To me, it caused a temporary epiphany. It made me realize that the whole playoffs this year I (at age 17) had been watching a man playing his 17th season and thinking of nothing but his sheer awesomeness. It did not have the epiphany that he was definitely guilty of something related to the murders that took place 13 years ago, but I had the epiphany that I had spent a long time not caring about the murders at all. I realized that Ray Lewis’s story was not a case of media forgiveness and athlete repent. Michael Vick’s crimes were forgiven. Ray Lewis’s alleged crimes, albeit alleged, were forgotten.
            Just a day later after the Raven’s victory Ray Lewis was standing on the podium holding the Lombardi trophy yelling “Baltimore!” into a microphone. And I sat in my seat with chills. Chills. Chills of inspiration and amazement. I was not alone, I turned on ESPN later that night and heard analyst Tom Jackson say “What a ride for Ray Lewis, this is one of the best things ever.” One of the best things EVER. And I sat back on my hotel room bed and thought about Mike Lupica and thought again about how disgustingly little I cared about the murders that Ray Lewis were involved with. The media, the Ravens, and the NFL had all moved on and revered Lewis as a hero, and I followed right behind them and did the same and will forever. As quickly as stories were published about Ray Lewis as a villain in 2000 they were published just as fast in 2001 about Ray Lewis the hero. So I ask you, sports fans, do we care about what’s right and wrong? Or will we write, read, and watch whatever makes the best story? There will forever be an unsolved murder involving Ray Lewis, but when big Ray throws on his Hall of Fame jacket and gives a moving acceptance speech nobody in the room will care. But hey, at least he swears he isn’t hiding anything the same way Lance Armstrong swears he didn’t cheat, so maybe they both really are falsely accused… Oh wait nevermind.

Go cheer for Wave Puck tonight. Till next Wednesday, it’s been really real.
            

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