Golf is a sport that I just haven't mastered (yet), but I'm trying. So when running back Chuck Evans of the Super Bowl champion Ravens walked up to me in the clubhouse at the Chandler Park Golf Course in Detroit, I was nervous. It wasn't Chuck, but his question that I was dreading.

I was on assignment covering the Jerome Bettis football camp in Detroit, a week-long free clinic for young players. Today was the celebrity golf outing -- Franco Harris, Charles Woodson, Kordell Stewart, and Tyrone Wheatley were some of the headliners. Tough crowd. I was hiding out in the clubhouse trying to avoid being asked to play. "I left my clubs at home," was going to be my official line.

But Chuck surprised me. "Can I trust you?" he asked. I wasn't sure what he was talking about -- or if he was even talking to me -- until I looked up from the intense game of tonk being played by actor Michael Talliafero and any guy foolish enough to sit down. Chuck was holding out his $25,000 Super Bowl ring.

I'd seen The Ring the day before during the camp. But now Chuck was asking me to hold it. In a second, I grabbed The Ring and pushed it down on my left thumb. It didn't even come close to fitting, but I bent my finger to keep it from falling off.

"You playing?" he asked. "Nah, I don't think so. I don't have a team ... and I left my clubs at home," I said, still looking down at the yellow-gold, diamond-and-ruby-encrusted ring. The huge rectangular face was a depiction of the Ravens stadium with the Raven logo in the middle of the field. The bird had a ruby eye; the end zones were filled in with diamonds.

Chuck snapped me out of my daze. "I have room in my cart ... you can come with us," he said. It was an offer too good to pass up. Because no way was I ready to take off The Ring. Besides, what could be so hard about hitting a little ball with a giant club -- while wearing my lucky ring? We set off for the course with three corporate execs from Detroit who had drafted Chuck to be on their team. (I guess I was a supplemental pick.)

It didn't take too many holes to figure out why Chuck had passed off his precious gem to me. He wanted a little peace, because wearing The Ring is huge burden. Every place I went, I was worried about losing the thing. I pulled my sleeves down over my hands to hide the ring and protect it from the elements. I checked my finger every 30 seconds. People kept stopping me, mid-swing, to ask if they could look at it, touch it, try it on (right).

By the ninth hole, my wrist was aching from holding up my hand to all the gawkers. And getting grief from the other NFLers wasn't helping either. "You guys are the worst players out here," said Donovan McNabb, nearly running us over with his cart. (Donovan talked a good game but really, we spent most of the day dodging his errant shots.)

The camp's namesake wasn't exactly pleased with my jewelry either. "What? Take that thing off. I didn't know you were a Ravens fan," Bettis said, rolling his eyes.

I tried to tell him that I wasn't; that I was coerced into wearing it, but as I was explaining all this, some paparrazzi photographers overheard our conversation. Before I knew it they were snapping shots of my hand from every angle and asking questions: "How'd you get the ring? Who are you, are you someone important? Is it your husband's ring? How much is it worth? Can you get us any Super Bowl tickets this season?"

Through all this chaos, Chuck was calmly continuing his golf game. But occasionally, he'd look over at me and shake his head knowingly. He knew the burden of The Ring.

Roxanne Jones is deputy editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail roxanne.jones@espnmag.com.