 |
 |
||||||
|
|
 |
|||||
|
| Media takes bite of Lewis story Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times So here was his chance to be a man, open his heart and say the words that grieving souls and a confused nation need to hear. It should surprise no one that Ray Lewis, with a smile, defiantly refused.
It was scary. Ray Lewis was Jesus. "Jesus couldn't please everybody," Lewis said. "He was spit on, slashed at, talked about . . . yet he never said a word. That's my attitude." It was unsettling. Ray Lewis was the victim. "I've got money, I'm black and I'm blessed . . . so it's about me, and that's wrong," he said. "Don't be mad at me because I'm on center stage." It was sad. Ray Lewis was everything but sorry. Bob Kravitz, Indianapolis Star What was Ray Lewis supposed to do on media day? Spill some crocodile tears? Do a ceremonial dance of contrition? Apologize for the fact that one year after witnessing a murder, he is back at the Super Bowl as the game's biggest star and curiosity? There will be a lot of angry words thrown at Lewis today, many of them from good people in my business. And I will understand their moral indignation. As I stood on the bleachers just beyond the media scrum in front of Lewis, I found myself wincing nearly every time he opened his mouth. Jon Saraceno, USA Today Ray Lewis feels persecuted. Poor guy. Everyone keeps piling on pro football's pre-eminent middle linebacker. Is this anyway to treat a millionaire superstar who has lifted his team on his shoulder pads and carried it to Super Bowl XXXV? What's a Pro Bowler to do? First, the Atlanta police tried to put the squeeze on him a year ago and make him snitch on his friends in a double-murder investigation. Then, it was the district attorney's office trophy-hunting for a star athlete. Couldn't it see he was only in the wrong place at the wrong time? C'mon, fellas, the three knives his two co-defendants purchased the day before were for peeling carrots. Later, it was the big, bad media profiteers out to destroy Lewis with their hatchet jobs, ruining his name to sell newspapers and increase TV ratings. Now, it's the grieving families in Ohio of two murdered men who just won't let it go. "If he were so innocent, if he had genuine sympathy for the family, he should've called us or come to see us ... something," says Harold Wilson Jr., uncle of one of the slain men. I mean, the nerve of these people. John Eisenberg, Baltimore Sun Ray Lewis had a chance to make the rest of his life a lot easier. All he had to do was give the Super Bowl media what they wanted yesterday. A dash of humility. A pinch of remorse. A pang of regret over his role in the unsolved double homicide that occurred after last year's Super Bowl in Atlanta. He wouldn't do it. "I'm not here to please the country," Lewis said during an hour-long session with reporters at Raymond James Stadium. Too bad.
|
