|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Step right up Lewis situation the three-ring circus of media day
Updated: Wednesday January 24, 2001 12:15 AM
TAMPA, Fla. -- It was Send in the Clowns Day at the Super Bowl. Otherwise known as the day Ray Lewis played ringmaster to the media circus. At first blush it's hard to tell who wound up putting the joke over on whom. But when it was done, nobody felt much like laughing. Lewis, the Baltimore Ravens linebacker and onetime double-murder suspect, spent most of his allotted hour on Media Day talking about how he wasn't going to talk about the subject that the media wanted to talk about. As for the media, we knew that was likely going to be the case. But that didn't stop the more than 100 reporters -- this one included -- who raced to Lewis' platform at Raymond James Stadium, then stood shoulder to shoulder like sardines for the full hour to ask and ask, and ask again. All without extracting one shred of new information or revelation from Lewis. Not to mention anything resembling remorse or regret.
Portraying himself as a captive of his own fame, Lewis might have scaled the heights of absurdity Tuesday when he linked himself, at least tangentially, to another well-known victim: A guy named Jesus. "Jesus couldn't please everybody," Lewis said. "He was spit on, slashed at, talked about. Everything there was. But guess what? He hung his head and never said a mumbly word. That's my attitude." Indeed, for most of Media Day, it was. Lewis talked plenty, but said little. His boldest sound bite of the day came early on, when asked if he had thought much about the families of the victims involved in last year's double homicide in Atlanta -- crimes he was initially charged with but later exonerated from. Lewis pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice and was placed on probation. "We're here to simply close that chapter," said Lewis, conveniently forgetting that the case remains unsolved. "The scary part about life is, yeah, I've got money. Yeah, I'm black. And yeah, I'm blessed. But at the same time, let's find out the real truth. The real truth is this was never about those two kids who were dead in the street. It's about Ray Lewis. "Don't be mad at me because I was on center stage. The person to be mad at is [prosecutor] Paul Howard and the mayor of Atlanta. The people who never one time said we're going to find out who killed these people. They said we're going to get Ray Lewis. Ray Lewis was never the guy. But anyway, that's a chapter that we're trying to get past. ... We're not here to focus on Ray Lewis. What Ray Lewis went through, that was a year ago. Let it go." But the media wasn't about to let it go, and took another dozen or so runs at the topic. Lewis has said he would like to talk with the families of the victims when the time is appropriate. His head coach, Brian Billick, repeated that desire in a Monday news conference. But both men have been angered recently with national media outlets that have contacted the families of the victims, supposedly without giving Lewis' side of the story. But when Lewis was given several opportunities Tuesday to direct a few words at the families, or set the record straight, he refused. "Nah," he said. "Uh-uh." Why not? "Football, football, football," came the reply. Later, Lewis reminded the media that he had already expressed sympathy for the families of the victims. "I've said that before, so for me to keep repeating that because you all didn't care to go follow it up or care to find it, I'm not going to keep repeating it," he said.
Lewis and his Ravens teammates made some sport of the pack journalism that was on display Tuesday, and it was hard not to. "You guys all want Ray Lewis and he's down that way," said Baltimore defensive tackle Tony Siragusa helpfully, and mockingly, as reporters streamed past his platform at the stroke of 1 p.m. "C'mon Ray, send some of those people over here," shouted another Raven. "You've got them all." Combative at times, without ever losing his cool, Lewis did have us all hanging on his every word. His every self-serving word. "It's not about me," said Lewis, again returning to the theme of his being guilty of nothing more than celebrity. "It's simple. It's not hard. Think about it. If you put Ray Lewis at the center of attention, how much media and press are you going to get? The same press that's sitting here right now. If I'm an average Joe, none of you all are here. That's really how simple that is. "I'm the figure that everybody says, 'They're out of control.' Are we really? No. We're just like everybody else. I'm a man. I bleed. I cry. I moan. I do all of that. So you move on in life." Moving on in life hasn't been easy given the media's continued interest in the double-murder. The questions about Lewis' ordeal of 2000 weren't non-stop. He entertained a host of game-related queries, plus entered into discussions of his tattoos -- two panthers and a picture of himself in football uniform -- and his jewelry.
But the topic of last year's Super Bowl and his part in the Atlanta tragedy was never far off on Tuesday. If there was a potential flashpoint, it came when one reporter pointed out that Lewis was at the scene of the crime and asked who the real killers were? "I don't know," Lewis said blankly. "I don't know. If I knew I would have told [the district attorney]." Any regrets, other than not telling the truth to the police initially? "Nah," Lewis replied. "For what?" The standoff between Lewis and the media went on that way seemingly without end, neither side controlling the conversation the way they had hoped or maybe naïvely envisioned. News flash: Maybe the Super Bowl Media Day is just not the forum to do justice to such a delicate topic. "I keep telling you over and over," Lewis said. "You all can say what you want to say. You all can write what you want to write. The only difference is, I'm not going to speak about it. So the person you want to hear it from, it's not going to come from." Finally, the only clarity of the day. Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
