Ray Rice Video: Warning – Unpopular Comments Ahead

Aug 7, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice (27) smiles during the game against the San Francisco 49ers at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Evan Habeeb-USA TODAY Sports

With the release today of the fuller version of a video of Ray Rice and the altercation with his then fiancée Janay Palmer, I have been asked to contribute to our network-wide dialogue on the situation. The video, along with basic comment upon it can be seen by clicking here.

Even while being an editor at one of the sports sites that covers the Baltimore Ravens, I have heretofore commented very little on this entire Ray Rice situation. But it is now going to come pouring out, and it is not going to be popular.

I don’t do this sports writing thing for any other reason than the love of sports. I want to write about games and strategies and all that makes for ON-THE-FIELD success, or failure. The drama that happens with players off the field is of little interest to me. I’m interested in sports.

I have enough to do in the larger piece of my life with issues off the field. I am the pastor of a larger than average church. And in that role, I have a front row seat in the lives of many people. I am within an arm’s reach of when they are dedicated as children, when they get married, when they are hospitalized, and when they die … seeing all sorts of highs and lows in the inevitable ebb and flow of the human condition.

I want to write about sports, about games, about statistics, about strategy. I don’t really want to touch the other stuff, but here it comes, and it is likely to sound sanctimonious … if you take it that way, I’m sorry, but understand that this hits a big nerve in me.

Understand, the actions of Ray Rice are horrific; they are indefensible, and honestly, he has not been defensive. Actually, the video simply shows what was known to have happened. It does not add anything new to the story beyond the visual evidence of it.

Understand too, I don’t need Ray Rice to escape with a two-game suspension. I don’t know what is right or wrong about an NFL or Ravens discipline, though will admit that two games seemed a bit scant. And know too that I have no emotional attachment to Ray Rice – as a fan or a writer. I don’t think he is irreplaceable by the Ravens. I’m good with him never playing again … just speaking personally.

I don’t know Ray Rice. Overall, he seems like a pretty good guy who had an isolated bad situation. There is no shortage of players about whom this situation would fit well with the overall demeanor and lifestyle they presented, and there is something to say for how totally out of character this is with everything ever seen or known about Ray Rice before the event.

So, here’s where it gets unpopular. Let me ask – what made this such an out-of-character event in Rice’s life? What happens at casinos and bars and places like these? What is not far away from the vast majority of situations where a professional player is arrested for making the news away from the field of play?

Alcohol, substance abuse.

The abuse of alcohol is certainly not limited to professional athletes. It is a grievous problem throughout our culture. Without alcohol abuse, the numbers related to domestic violence, crime of all sorts, vehicular deaths – all of these would take precipitous drops.

Where is the outrage against this source of so much pain and death in our culture? Oh, there is a little bit here and there – a few MADD programs or whatever. But no outrage at all commensurate with the pain it inflicts.

Rather, alcohol is exalted and encouraged. Few sports are free of regular commercials that flaunt the good-times fulfillment to be found in the bottle of a particular brand. A significant percentage of revenues that make professional sports popular come from this industry.

So what hits me as sanctimonious is that there is outrage against the all-too-common results that come from the impaired judgments resultant from a product that is over-indulged and over-exulted in our entire culture. No, the general percentage of people who imbibe do not end up beating their spouses or driving drunk; but it cannot be denied that the abuse of drink is connected to a terribly high percentage of the evils that occur in our culture.

We laugh and joke at drunks. We make light of the condition of being tipsy or inebriated to some extent. But so often, just on the other side of a line of all of that is a Ray Rice, or the drunk-driving idiot who took the life of my hometown’s baseball star Nick Adenhart of the Angels after the first game of the season in 2009.

So, go ahead and defend alcohol if you must. I’ll just tell you, “I don’t get it.”  I’ve been so out of step with the rest of American culture for so long that I am impervious to criticisms on this subject.