There is no way anyone would have dared predict the greatness of Lewis five years ago coming out of the University of Miami as a very undersized junior linebacker.
Twenty-three different franchises passed on the future Hall of Famer on that day in April 1996, including the Ravens when they selected Ogden. Now, with 20/20 hindsight and the clarity of a Super Bowl championship and MVP trophy, he would have easily been the first player taken in the draft.
His true impact on every game since the Ravens’ inception has been very clear to only one segment of the population: the fans who watch the Ravens play every week. And up until the 2000 playoffs, that made up a very small segment of NFL fans. The lowly Ravens, with their lack of identity, wins and major-market appeal, were about as far down the food chain as could be found in the league. The Ravens had never even sniffed a Monday Night Football appearance.
Ask around to folks in the organization and to the football minds on the inside and they’ll tell you that Ray Lewis has never played a bad football game. In five full seasons spanning 84 games, Lewis has missed two games after dislocating his elbow early in the 1998 season. There were a handful of games when Lewis had an “off game” and still managed 12 tackles.
From the moment he took the field in the first game of franchise history, Sept. 1, 1996 against the Oakland Raiders at Memorial Stadium, Lewis has been a dominant player in the league, a guy who never takes a down off. But so very few had actually seen him play. Baltimore was not a preferred destination for media or scouts or front office types prior to the 2000 season.
I can very vividly remember the first time I met Ray Lewis. It didn’t seem to be anything momentous and there certainly was more than minor trepidation on my part. It was the first game in franchise history.
As the game wound down and I was heading down the ramps of Memorial Stadium from my seat in old Section 6, Row 16, Seat 1 – as has become my custom with five minutes remaining in virtually every Ravens’ game I’ve been to since – I knew that I had to secure a guest for my radio show on Monday night. When the Ravens came to Baltimore I made a commitment to try to revive the old “Monday Night Live” feeling from the Colts’ era, when players, coaches, fans and media celebrities would gather at Ordell Braase’s Flaming Pit in Cockeysville back when I was a kid. My Dad and I would listen every week, but because my Dad never drove a car and “ritzy” Cockeysville wasn’t on the bus line, we never went. I still don’t even know what the inside of that place looked like, but as a kid, it seemed like it must’ve been the Taj Mahal of football restaurants. For me – nearly 20 years later – it was a nice relationship with a bar that had toughed it out with me in Northeast Baltimore called, simply enough, The Barn.
8
The Barn had tradition, local owners, hot steamed crabs, legendary crab cakes, rock bands and a solid base of loyal customers. And more importantly, even if I bombed and only my friends and family showed, it wouldn’t be completely empty.
There was only one person even on my mind as I made my way down to the field. Even though Vinny Testaverde was having a great day, passing for 254 yards and running in the first touchdown in team history, it was clearly a coming out party for rookie Ray Lewis. Lewis had seven tackles, flew to the ball and intercepted a Billy Joe Hobert pass in the end zone in the open end of the stadium’s horseshoe that would have otherwise cost the Ravens their first franchise victory. The Ravens held on, to defeat the Raiders, 19-14.
There was only one problem asking Ray Lewis to come to The Barn the next night.
I had never met him.
Sad explanation:
After being drafted by the Ravens more than four months earlier, a series of very dark stories began appearing about Lewis. His best friend at Miami, a fellow linebacker named Marlin Barnes, had been brutally murdered just a few days before the draft. Lewis was shaken beyond belief. Literally. A Sports Illustrated story documented the grisly account of his dear friend and college roommate’s bludgeoning death over what must have been 12 pages in the magazine, including facts like Lewis’ propensity to still dial the pager of his friend waiting for a return call. Lewis was in disbelief.
I had spent plenty of time that July and August around the team and had forged some friendships with guys like Eric Zeier, Steve Everitt, Eric Turner, Rob Burnett, Michael Jackson and Ed Sutter, but Lewis was one dude I didn’t mess with. He was large and foreboding, constantly stern and quiet and seemed to always be wearing a T-shirt with his buddy Barnes pictured on the front. I thought he must’ve had at least a hundred of those shirts printed because he was never not wearing it. It contained a message about the importance of their friendship and served as a constant reminder of his life and death. I always thought twice before molesting Lewis – he was one disturbed, bad-assed dude from Miami, the most disturbed, bad-assed university of them all. For once in my career, I was officially intimidated by an athlete and proud of it.
8But, considering the fact that he was the star of the game – and very obviously the best player on the field that day – I thought the chances of getting a rookie to come to do my show was better than asking Testaverde, who was the coldest of cold fish. I had spent plenty of time with Vinny and he was so shaken by his abominable time in Tampa that he would never come out and meet the fans. (Just for the record, Testaverde, along with Shannon Sharpe, remain the only Ravens starters who have never done my “Monday Night Live” radio show during the team’s first five years. In all, we’ve had 92 different players come out and meet the fans.)
So it was on to a pattern that would serve me well over the 101 “Monday Night Live” radio shows that would follow before the Lombardi Trophy came back to Baltimore – start at the top and go backward from there.
When I entered the decrepit locker room of Memorial Stadium, I was greeted at the door by kicker Matt Stover. It is here that I should tell you that I was wearing my complete Raven regalia as I entered the room full of players.
Having spent a decade covering sports as a true “journalist” at The Baltimore Sun and The News American, I decided that when the Ravens came to town I was going to put my testicles out on the line a little bit and act like a fan. I always thought being “in the media” was a bit of a joke. Nobody I’d ever seen in a press box looked like they’d ever bought a ticket or ever sat in a seat that didn’t include free hot dogs, Pepsi and press notes. How the hell could they tell the fans what was going on or relate to the fans when they’d never been one? Or maybe it had been so long that they had forgotten what it was like to cheer or wait in line to go to the bathroom or pay real money for a ticket.
