The Ray Rice Situation and the Outrageous Outrage

Sep 19, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens fans wait in line over an hour to exchange their Ray Rice jerseys for new NFL jerseys at M&T Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

As I have written previously on this Ray Rice scandal (once when it first happened, and once when he was released), I am trying to run a sport site here at The Baltimore Wire.

This is not a forum on sociology, ethics, or American culture. We want to talk about offensive schemes for the Ravens, playoffs aspirations for the Orioles, and highlight Maryland colleges and preps athletic accomplishments.

But in that Rice was a star player on a team of our site’s emphasis, and in that it keeps coming up and spilling over into the sports side of things, perhaps another comment here is in order … but I’d rather be writing about football or baseball.

So … you know what is next if you’ve read anything about this situation … it is the “reprehensible disclaimer.” Yes, it was awful and yes, it is terribly wrong and unjustifiable. And as I wrote previously, the Ravens’ response, and especially that of the NFL hit me as “scant” relative to the crime. I still don’t understand why people were so shocked at the second video, when the first video showed a result that demanded the very action later seen in the second release. I guess actually seeing it makes all the difference.

The “legs” on the Ray Rice story have gained more yardage for the media than Rice’s legs ever gained for the Baltimore Ravens

But isn’t it about time to move back to football? When is enough blood shed? Rice is gone and will never be back. The Ravens are embarrassed to the core as an organization. The NFL has been forced into an extensive initiative to speak broadly and boldly to the issues of domestic violence.

There can be no doubt that one reason it goes on and on in the media is that scandal sells. “Hold it!” you might say … “you’re part of that media.”  Yes, and that is why I can say it with integrity and not as if I am some outside person yelling the old line that “ginning up controversy sells newspapers.”

Even in an infant, 10-month-old site like The Baltimore Wire, we think all of the time about our metrics … how are we doing? We daily look at page-view numbers, hoping to grow and attract a larger audience. We could have hitched ourselves to the Ray Rice Via Dolorosa, but have chosen short occasional comments and focused rather upon the fields of play.

The “legs” on the Ray Rice story have gained more yardage for the media than Rice’s legs ever gained for the Baltimore Ravens, even at his best.

Another reason the story is a bigger hangover than the alcohol-saturated root that likely caused this and the bulk of other domestic violence situations (for which I am still waiting to hear the outrage over the excessive adulation of alcohol in our culture) is that it is a humongous stage and platform for moral high-grounders.

Ray Rice provides an opportunity for many to think and act upon some version of, “I may not be perfect, but I’m not as bad as that … and frankly, I feel a lot better about myself now that I’ve seen a bigger person than me take this fall.” And yelling and grand-standing about it bigger and louder than anyone else adds to the sense of well-being.

It would seem to me that the appropriate primary emotion would be sadness. Sad for Ray and Janay, sad for the mark upon the Ravens and the NFL, and sad for our culture that elevates ill-equipped people to status symbols because of athletic talent.

Given the breakdown of the family within society, along with a variety of other social complications, it is no secret that many professional athletes are not equipped to deal with the issues of life in the lights and cameras of public scrutiny. Especially in football and basketball, the stars have been exactly that for a long time. They were the big men on campus in high school and college, and how with pockets of money and an adoring public who turns out in the tens of thousands to see them play … well, you see yourself as rather unique.

But it is here that sports and the people involved with it may be most redemptive in a world that is 100% filled with flawed people. At the youngest levels, and through the school programs, and even into the professional ranks, the teaching needs to be endless and timeless that sports are not life itself; but sports can teach about what really is life and how to live it well.

Once a year on a high school bus with my team – early in the season returning from an away contest – I would have a team meeting and ask this question, “Why are we doing this?”

The primary answer from the competitive kids was some version of “winning championships and a state title.”  The larger crowd of participants would talk about “having fun with friends and getting out of school early.”

And I would say, “Yes, we want you to have this team experience as a great memory of your high school years; and we are going to win championships locally and across the state. But the main reason is to teach you life lessons in a small environment. Here you learn how daily disciplines and the setting of intermediate goals toward accomplishing a big goal is a pattern of life accomplishment. You learn here what it means to respect and work with others toward a reward that is bigger than yourself. And from this, you will know how to gain an education that takes you toward a career, the steps and goals that help you be a success in that career, and the skills with other people that make you productive in your family and community. That is why we are doing this.”

The NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. are filled with people who have come from varied backgrounds, many of them quite troubled, and who have had the disciplines of sporting ventures transform their lives in a comprehensively consistent way. Lately, with Ray Rice, Jameis Winston, and a host of others, we hear of situations where the effort is still in process or was ultimately insufficient.

Piling on to Rice, the Ravens, Roger Goodell, the NFL or whatever is not helpful at this juncture. Risk standing back from those who try to leap as high as possible onto the heap, and by standing back be judged as insufficiently outraged. Rather, if you can claim any portion of the moral high ground, find a place where you may use your platform in sports to make a difference in lives around you. That is redemptive; that is something other than screeching in outrage.

Play ball.