Ray Lewis spreads message of grass-roots engagement
Ray Lewis remembered when he was a boy in Lakeland, Florida, with no father at home and no obvious prospects for success. He needed to find a place where adults would love him and help him discover a path to something better.
“It was this one building in Lakeland, a Boys & Girls Club,” the former Ravens linebacker and Pro Football Hall of Famer said Thursday. “Everybody knows my story about [how] daddy wasn’t around. But the Boys Club was, and I found one or two teachers that wanted to sit down and spend time with a kid that wanted to learn.”
Lewis told his story on a street corner, about 1 miles north of M&T Bank Stadium, where he made his name as the greatest player in Ravens history.
In the background, on South Poppleton Street, stood a former Catholic school building that will be renovated over the next year into a “Community Campus,” at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The facility will offer job training, exercise
classes, computer access, a fresh food market and various youth activities for residents of surrounding neighborhoods.
In other words, it will resemble the place that helped set Lewis on his path to success.
“Every child, every homeless person, every person that’s lost an opportunity, they look for the same thing an infant looks for,” he said, speaking in his capacity as a board member for the University of Maryland,
Baltimore Foundation. “An infant looks to be held, fed and loved. … If you put a baby to your chest and he hears your heartbeat, he calms down. Well, guess what? People that’s behind bars, they calm down too.
They want the same thing. These buildings, the reason why they matter is because they give us an imagination that I can find my way out. That’s the whole goal of this.”
Before Lewis spoke, UMB President Jay
Perman described him as “an incredibly generous man” and “a believer in this city’s great potential.”
The West Baltimore groundbreaking was another example of the multi-faceted life “My internal team does a really good job Lewis has led this year as he expands his with what I get involved with and what I post-playing activities. There was the July don’t,” he said. “Health, wellness, financial announcement that he would help refashion literacy, mental health — it’s all about the the former Ciao Bella into a new Little Italy total human being. That’s kind of how I say, restaurant known as Lew Gambino’s. Then ‘I’m going to get involved in that.’ I was on a came his abbreviated stint on “Dancing with call yesterday, with some very interesting the Stars,” the televised competition from business opportunities, but I was like, ‘Nah, which he withdrew after tearing tendons in I’m going to pass.’ Because it just wasn’t for me.”hisfoot.Justrecently,hesaid,hisPower52 company, which offers job training in the He joked that he did not seek outside solar-energy industry to at-risk and undercounsel before appearing on “Dancing With served adults, graduated its 12th class of the Stars,” which he said he did purely for workers. And those activities come on top of fun. his regular appearances as an analyst on “That’s why my toe’s messed up now,” he Showtime’s “Inside The NFL” program. said, laughing. “Because I didn’t talk to my
Lewis, 44, said he’s “in an amazing place team.” in my life” as he picks activities in Lewis narrowly survived one elimination consultation with a tight group of advisers. round before bowing out in tearful conver
Jags’ Dareus out 4-6 weeks: Jaguars defensive tackle Marcell Dareus underwent core muscle surgery Thursday and will miss four to six weeks.
Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said Wednesday that Dareus was in Philadelphia to receive treatment from sports hernia specialist Dr. William Meyers. Dareus was injured during the Jaguars’ victory over the Bengals last weekend.
Dareus has 13 tackles (one for loss) and a half sack in six games this season. He missed the season opener with an elbow injury.
Dareus isn’t the first Jaguars player to be treated by Meyers. Receiver Allen Hurns, tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, running back Toby Gerhart and receiver Dede Westbrook also had the surgery. Westbrook missed nine games his rookie season after his surgery. sation with his dance partner, Cheryl Burke. He told People magazine that pain was shooting up his leg before an MRI revealed he’d torn three tendons while practicing the cha-cha.
Lewis’ public magnetism in Baltimore has not diminished in the almost seven years since he played his final snaps for the Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII. At the UMB event, residents of the surrounding neighborhood, university workers and dignitaries crowded around him to snap photos and request autographs.
Given that connection, Perman said, it’s obvious why the university would want to partner with the former Ravens great.
“I think it gives what we’re doing authenticity,” he said. “Because let’s face it, Ray understands the people of this neighborhood better than I do. I haven’t lived it. I have a lot to learn, and Ray brings me back to reality. He explains things to me I never would have thought of.”
Lewis said that during his many conversations with Perman, the driving question is always the same: “How can we affect people?”
“Because if we affect people, we affect nations,” he told the crowd Thursday, drawing responsive murmurs of “That’s right.”
In lieu of using shovels to dig ceremonial clumps of ground, Lewis and others hung paper leaves on a metal elm tree sculpted by UMB’s provost. On his leaf, Lewis wrote, “We all come together.” Meaning that without people and their stories of love and struggle, a nice building is just a nice building.
“The football field was awesome for me, but I’ll tell you something that’s greater,” Lewis said. “I’m in my 12th graduation with my solar company, that’s bringing kids off the freakin’ streets and turning gang members, and guess what they’re saying? ‘Somebody gave me a chance.’ All they want is a chance, and this community center is a chance.”