By Edwin Cooney
I know, “something’s wrong with practically everyone else
except thee and me and sometimes I even wonder about thee,” but surely the
fault in 2013 America can’t be ours as much as it is that of our entertainment
and sports stars.
Since this is being written before Super Bowl XLVII was played yesterday in New
Orleans (or if you prefer, “The Big Easy”), I don't know whether Baltimore
Ravens’ inside linebacker Ray Lewis was able to ignite another shining star in
his personal football milky way.
What makes that really matter to so many is that Ray Lewis is not only
rich and famous as a brilliant Hall of Fame bound football player, but in the
eyes of two families, he’s a murderer.
About this time thirteen years ago, Ray Anthony Lewis, a
native of Bartow, Florida, was indicted on murder and aggravated assault
charges in Atlanta, Georgia.
The stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar took
place outside the Cobalt Lounge, an Atlanta nightclub, in the midst of a fight
between companions of Ray Lewis and the companions of Baker and Lollar who were
celebrating the thirty-fourth Super Bowl victory of the St. Louis Rams over the
Tennessee Titans. The trial that
followed resulted in the acquittal of Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting even
though Ray Lewis turned state’s evidence and testified against them.
Lewis, who is ending a brilliant career in the 2013 Super
Bowl in the eyes of his coach John Harbaugh, his teammates, and Baltimore
Ravens fans, is both a football icon and a Christian gentleman. In the eyes of the Baker and Lollar
families, he’s not only a murderer but also an example of our society’s
willingness to overlook both wrongdoing and evil in favor of Sunday afternoon
sports entertainment.
While it certainly doesn’t hurt us to know about this
terrible incident and to sympathize with the families of Jacinth Baker and
Richard Lollar, it also begs for perspective. Who was twenty-four-year-old Ray Lewis back in 2000? Was he little more than a talented
well-paid thug or was he genuinely trying to break up a fight between two rowdy
gangs? Who were Jacinth Baker and
Richard Lollar besides the hopeful barber and artist depicted by the two
families? If one of my lads were
involved in a fight between two groups or gangs, I’d want to know what he was
doing associating with the types who would indulge in that sort of a
melee! The answer to these
questions might be enlightening, but the articles I’ve seen about this sad thirteen
year old incident don’t tell us much.
There is ample testimony as to who Ray Lewis is today and
most of those testimonials point to Ray Lewis’s charity work and his dedication
to his country, his family, to the needy and to God. Of course, Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar have no new
accomplishments since they’ve been gone for thirteen years now. We know them
only through the painful yet loving memories of their families.
The heart-rending feelings of the Baker and Lollar families
are certainly very, very understandable.
However, I think that the rest of us who had no connection to either the stabbing or the subsequent trial
proceedings can be forgiven if we allow ourselves to just enjoy the football
game. I like to speculate as much as the next guy, but it seems to me that some
of the fuss that’s being exercised in the wake of this rather ironic situation
is evidence of unnecessary self-flagellation.
Of course, we live in a materialistic, self-indulgent
society that would rather spend money on entertainment than charity, but the
truth is that plenty of money gets spent on both. As the Baltimore Ravens square off against the San Francisco
Forty-Niners, you can be sure that there are sinners on both sides of the
ball. (As for "Saints"
on either side, we’ll just have to settle for the fact that the two teams are
playing on the home field of the unsaintly New Orleans Saints who were Super
Bowl champions themselves just three years ago.) Here’s another truth: men and women with far more at stake
(usually money) than you and I are the ones who decide who has talent enough to
participate on sports teams, in rock bands and orchestras, in plays and movies,
as well as in politics.
Former Yankee outfielder Mickey (“Mick the Quick")
Rivers had it right when he once observed in his rather crude but quaint
way: "Ain't no sense
worrying: If you have no control over something, ain't no sense worrying about
it -- you have no control over it anyway. If you do have control, why worry? So
either way, there ain't no sense worrying."
Two observations: I agree with Mick the Quick. Second, his
real name is John Milton Rivers just like the 17th Century English
poet! Can you believe it?
When William Shakespeare had Cassius proclaim to Brutus in
his play "Julius Caesar” “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but
in ourselves…” he was referring to stars in the Milky Way. To worry about the purity of Ray Lewis
is to worry about the stars that we’ve partially created. Still, if we spend time worrying or
indulging in agony about things over which we have little or no control then
“the fault, John and Susie Q Citizen, truly is not in our stars but in
ourselves."
Whether Lewis’s Ravens win or lose may well depend on Ray
Lewis’s football prowess, but I’m guessing it will have nothing to do with his
soul!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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