So this, mom or dad, is what you tell your kid about Ray Lewis, Super Bowl MVP.
Your kid went to bed Sunday night with Ravens fever. Your kid was doing Ray Lewis’ creepy dance poses all the way to the bedroom. Now your kid just has to have a purple No. 52 Ray Lewis jersey because “everybody else will.”
You’re as shaken as the New York Giants.
Deep down you didn’t want your kid watching this Super Bowl any more than you wanted your kid buying Allen Iverson’s rap CD or sneaking a peak at “Any Given Sunday” on cable. These taunting, flaunting Ravens were rated R. You let your kid watch only because you convinced yourself the Giants would shut them up something like 24-13.
You figured your kid would get a lesson in tight-lipped, no-frills, old-school football.
But from the game’s first play, you could see Lewis was playing as if he were possessed–your assumption all along. Lewis broke up Kerry Collins’ first pass, to tight end Pete Mitchell, and Collins was never the same. He looked as scared and confused as you feel right now. Before your wincing eyes, Collins turned into Cade McNown at Raymond James Stadium, where McNown has lost 6-3 and 41-0.
You hoped your kid would be distracted by the commercials. You guffawed at the monkey on horseback, the running of the squirrels, the car stuck in the tree and Bob Dole for what you thought was Viagra. Your kid giggled over the guy shaking up his beer and spraying his hot babe, the “Whassup?” parody with nerds asking each other, “What are you doing?” and the security guard’s “Matrix” fantasy.
But you weren’t laughing when the Giants had the ball. Your kid was tackling the furniture, woofing and growling, “Ray!” This human tackling machine was everywhere, tipping passes, stopping running backs cold, terrorizing Collins. You hated yourself for thinking of Butkus. You knew Lewis deserved the MVP, but you hoped the media would give it to Trent Dilfer.
You couldn’t help thinking the promos for “Exit Wounds” pretty much described the Giants after they were riddled 34-7. You couldn’t help thinking that the best lap dances in Tampa all week were done by Lewis on Giants ballcarriers.
But good gawd, now your kid has taken one of your generation’s songs, Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”–which they performed at halftime with the help of scantily clad teen queen Britney Spears–and turned it into the Ravens’ anthem. Walk this way, talk this way.
So what do you do? You set your kid down, treat your kid like an adult, tell your kid the R-rated truth.
Explain that the only thing to be admired about Lewis is the way he plays football. Explain that athletes almost always make the worst off-the-field examples because they have too many temptations, too much money and too few rules.
Tell your kid what Lewis tells the media: “I came from thugs and sometimes I go back [to the way he was raised].” Explain that Lewis nearly destroyed his life after last year’s Super Bowl by partying with thugs from his childhood in the migrant-worker ghetto of Lakeland, Fla., just up the road from Tampa. Two other guys with criminal records were killed in a street fight that had gang overtones.
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Tell your kid that Lewis lied to protect friends that weren’t really friends. Lewis was in jail for 15 days. Murder charges were dropped, but he remains on probation for lying to authorities.
Tell your kid that the NFL is a violent game played by lots of great athletes who have some thug in them. For that matter, tell your kid that Ravens owner Art Modell is a money-grubbing businessman who moved his team from Cleveland to Baltimore for a better stadium deal.
Strip the fantasy off the Super Bowl. Tell your kid good guys don’t always win. Explain that Lewis’ value system is still out of whack–that he mistakenly thinks God has blessed him because he publicly praises God while privately making the bar scene, wearing showy jewelry and self-worshiping tattoos and running around on the two mothers of his four children.
Explain that Disney World didn’t want Lewis doing its annual MVP commercial because he stands for so much kids shouldn’t be. Point out that Lewis has no one to blame but himself. His response: “I’m going to be with my kids tomorrow. My kids don’t want to be at no Disney.”
Maybe so, but very few dads will ever be as famous as Lewis is now. Even fewer are blessed with Lewis’ athletic and leadership ability. His team rallied around him from his opening speech at camp, when he said, “I need to go to Tampa (Super Bowl XXXV) now.”
Teammates are in awe of Lewis because he’s a defiant warrior, because he walks his trash-talking talk, because he studies game film and lifts weights as hard as he plays. Tell your kid that this is why you should be proud to wear his No. 52. Explain that as lousy as he was in school, he’s an extremely intelligent, fundamentally sound football player who kept anticipating runs and passes before the Giants ran or passed.
Then buy your kid Lewis’ jersey. Lewis owned pro football this season. Admit it: He just might be the best middle linebacker ever. If your kid wants to play defense, he couldn’t have a better old-school role model.
At home, that responsibility had better be yours.