I Feel Like Going On

by Ray Lewis

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  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  OCTOBER 14, 2012

  When You Know What You Know, Do What You Do

  ONE

  Say My Name

  TWO

  Pick ’Em Up, Bust ’Em

  THREE

  Respect Me Like You Sweat Me

  FOUR

  One Alligator

  FIVE

  Welcome to Miami

  SIX

  Hurricane Seasons

  SEVEN

  Draft Day

  EIGHT

  Ride That Train

  NINE

  Atlanta

  TEN

  Resurrection

  ELEVEN

  I Feel Like Going On

  TWELVE

  “This Ain’t Over”

  THIRTEEN

  The 40-Yard Line

  POSTGAME

  My City Is Burning

  Acknowledgments

  Photographs

  About the Authors

  Index

  This book, like everything I do, is for my mother—my dear mama.

  Like the great Tupac song says, “Ain’t a woman alive that could take my mama’s place.” No, sir.

  Though the storm may be raging,

  and the billows are tossing high,

  I feel like going on . . .

  —Rance Allen and Thomas Allen, “I Feel Like Going On”

  OCTOBER 14, 2012

  When You Know What You Know, Do What You Do

  Game six of the 2012 NFL season—a season that’s meant to be mine, ours. We’re meant to win the Super Bowl. Other folks, they don’t know this yet, but I know it. My teammates, they might not even know it, but I know it. How do I know? Because I know. I can feel it in my bones. I can taste it. I can close my eyes and picture it. And I’m not shy about saying so.

  Already, I’m on record—told a sideline reporter at the last Pro Bowl that it was my final trip to Honolulu.

  She said, “Ray, this is your thirteenth Pro Bowl. Do you like coming to Hawaii year after year?”

  I said, “Tell you the truth, this is it for me. No more Pro Bowls. I’m done with Pro Bowls.”

  Something to think about: this was right after we lost the AFC Championship Game to the New England Patriots. It stung, the way we lost that game. It hurts to remember that game. We gave up the lead on a fourth-quarter drive after a goal-line stand. I’d stopped BenJarvus Green-Ellis, cold, third and goal from our 1-yard line, but then Tom Brady came back and stole that touchdown from us on fourth down—a sneak up the middle. We had our chances after that—drove inside the New England twenty with less than a minute to go, but Lee Evans had the ball stripped from his hands after catching a Joe Flacco pass in the end zone on a controversial call, and then we ended up missing a thirty-two-yard field goal that would have tied the game with no time on the clock. So, yeah, it stung.

  Told my teammates right after that game we’d be back next year—said, “This ain’t over. I promise.”

  This was no end-of-season pep talk. This wasn’t me sugarcoating our loss. I knew we had team enough to do it, drive enough to do it. I made it my goal. Nothing would get in the way of that. And I wanted the entire Baltimore Ravens organization to make it a goal, too. I wanted everyone to want it, same way I wanted it. Nothing else mattered. We’d worked too hard, come too close. No way we could let it lie.

  Honolulu? The Pro Bowl? I was grateful for the honor each time out, and Hawaii was nice enough, but let’s face it—the only folks playing the week before the Super Bowl are the also-rans. Lately, that’s how they have the game scheduled. You can be an all-star or you can be a champion. You can’t be both. We might dominate at our positions, we might get it done as individuals, but we’re not winners. Not this year. This is how I took it in, all those trips to Hawaii, that bye week just after the AFC and NFC Championship Games. If we were champions, we’d be dug in, getting ready for the Super Bowl. The rest of us, we’re just on vacation.

  So that’s the part on record. Off the record, I’d decided that 2012 would be my last season. It was time. All along, I knew that when my kids reached a certain age, when I’d accomplished everything there was to accomplish in the game, I would set it aside. My son Junior was going into his senior year in high school. I wanted to share that time with him, help him make the transition to college ball. My other kids, I wanted to be with them, too. Wasn’t about football. Physically, I felt strong. Physically, I could have played another four or five years at this same high level, I could continue to dominate, but it wasn’t about that. It was about family. About a life off the field. That’s the thing people don’t realize about this game—it takes the life out of you. I don’t mean it saps your strength or beats you down, although it does that, too. I mean it takes you away from the life you’re meant to be living. That’s the trade-off. All that time in the gym, all that time in practice, all that time on the road—it pulls you from the people you love. You trade the game for family time, and I got to where I didn’t want to make that trade. That’s all.

  First person I told was Junior. Told him right before that Pro Bowl game, when I was still lit by the fire of that loss to the Patriots. I took him aside and said, “Son, this is it for me. I’m gonna fix it so I can come to all your games next year.”

  He knew what I meant right away—said, “For real?”

  I said, “For real.”

  Then he said, “But, Pops, you always said that when you start something you’ve got to finish it. You need to get back to the Super Bowl.”

  I said, “Junior, we’re going to the Super Bowl. You can write that down.”

  I told my daughter Diaymon, too—but no one else. Wasn’t any reason for anybody else to know, not yet. I didn’t want to go out on some farewell tour. I didn’t want all those distractions. I just wanted to play football, get us back to that AFC Championship Game, get us back to the Super Bowl, finish on top. The Baltimore front office, the coaching staff, my Ravens teammates—all those folks could wait for my news and join me on my journey instead. I didn’t need them on my roller coaster. It would’ve gotten in the way of what we were trying to do—what we needed to do.

  So this is my mind-set, going into this game against Dallas. The season is young, but we’re off to a 4–1 start. We’re playing pretty well, both sides of the ball, finding our way. There’s a long way to go, but our championship run is taking shape. The pieces are in place. I’ve got my whole family with me at the stadium, up from Florida. Even my father is in the box, cheering me on. The whole time, leading up to the kickoff, I’m thinking this could be the last time my family is gathered like this for a regular season game—and just this one thought lights some new fire in me.

  The game starts out close. We’re on the board first with a field goal. The Cowboys answer with a touchdown, then a field goal. We tie it up at 10–10, then take the lead just before the half on a nineteen-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco to Torrey Smith.

  We head into the locker room on a momentum run, and the whole time I’m thinking of my family in the box above the field, everybody gathered to watch me go through these motions one final time, nobody but my son and daughter knowing this is some kind of a last dance. It started out as this great secret, but it can’t help but leak out. Already, there’s talk around the league that I might be retiring. This is where I am in the cycle of my career. I’m one of the
grand old men of the National Football League, I guess. After every game, there’s a press conference, people sticking microphones in my face, journalists asking me if I’m getting ready to hang it up. I’ve gotten pretty good at dodging the question, but that’s mostly because I’ve been asked the same question so many times.

  Still, I can hear the talk, mostly in whispers. Folks in and around the game, speculating on what I might do next, nobody knowing the first thing about me, about what drives me. But I tune it all out. I have a job to do, a goal in mind. All that other stuff, it gets in the way.

  Here’s a little background to help tell this next part: Sometime during the week leading up to this game against the Cowboys, one of my fellow linebackers—Dannell Ellerbe, a good young player out of Georgia—asked me to join him in the weight room for a session. He said he wanted to stay strong, second half of the season, and I wanted to encourage him, push him, so I joined him, and the whole time we were lifting I felt a little off. At one point I said to him, “Bro, my triceps, my arms, they’re feeling tight.”

  It was something to notice more than it was something to worry about. It wasn’t even enough to get me to change up my routine or cut my workout short. I just put on some compression sleeves to help me get through the lifts, and everything was fine.

  Now here’s the next part. Fourth quarter, the Cowboys are driving. Tony Romo hits Jason Witten for a big first down on an out route. The crowd is into it—it’s a one-possession game, Dallas down 31–23.

  I’m dug in, dialed in, leaning in. All of that.

  Next, Romo drops back. I follow his eyes, see where he’s looking to throw, so I drop back to meet the ball where it’s headed, maybe knock it away. For a couple beats in there, I’m thinking about putting my hands up, thinking about it, thinking about it—and when I finally do, after just the slightest hesitation, I time my jump and reach for the ball in a funny way, come down in a funny way, land hard against the helmet and shoulder pad of one of the Dallas linemen.

  As soon as I hit, I feel my triceps pop. It’s more like a snap than a pop—same spot where I’d felt that tightness in the weight room earlier in the week. Here was that “something to notice” come back to bite me, shift into something to worry about.

  Immediately, I know something’s wrong, but I shake it off. I’m in full battle mode. My thing is, you don’t leave the battlefield unless you die. You don’t walk off a battlefield—you’re carried off, on a stretcher. So I take that pain in my triceps and push it away, tell myself I can’t show that I’m hurt. Tell myself, whatever it is, whatever I’ve just done to my triceps, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. Only thing that matters is getting through this game with a win. Only thing that matters is making plays. I’ll play with one hand if I have to, long as we come out the other side.

  Turns out that’s just what I do—try to, anyway. I get back to the huddle, my arm is just kind of hanging there, dangling, but nobody notices. My teammates, they’re in full game mode, too. They’re into their own heads, focused. They don’t have time to think I might be hurt, and I’m not about to tell them. So I keep on keeping on. The fans don’t see that I’m hurting. The coaches, the trainers—they don’t see that I’m hurting. (Or, if they do, they don’t move to stop me, because they’re in it, too. They’re not about to take one of their warriors off the field unless they’re forced to.) Up in the stands, in the box, my family doesn’t even notice.

  The Cowboys, they absolutely don’t see that I’m hurting—and I take the time to think that this right here will be the killing piece, if my opponents see me vulnerable.

  I fight it, keep playing, make a couple tackles. The crowd is pulling for us, but Romo keeps moving the ball. We’re in our two-minute defense, short yardage, giving them a little room, middle of the field, protecting deep. We’re counting on the clock to help us defend—counting on Romo to run out of steam, maybe make a mistake.

  Finally, a bunch of plays in to my one-arm, tough-it-up, shake-it-off approach, this kid running back, Tanner, busts through the left side, barrels my way. I get it in my head that if I don’t make this play, this kid scores. He’s found a hole. We’re out near our own 40, but it feels to me like I’m the last line of defense, so I hurl myself in front of him, grab him, turn him to the side, yank him down with my one good arm.

  I make the play, the crowd feels it, but I realize it’s costing us, me being out here. I can’t fire, pounce the way I need to off the snap. I’m hurt, no doubt about it. I’m not worried about the pain. I don’t care about the pain, don’t even feel it. I’m not even worried about hurting myself any more than I already have—no, I’m worried about hurting the team. This is the equation I run in my head: If I can’t fire, I can’t make plays. If I can’t make plays, we might not hold this lead. If we don’t hold this lead, we might lose an important game in the standings. There’s this whole ripple effect that gets set in motion if I can’t do my job.

  Deep down, heart of hearts, I know my triceps is in bad shape. I know I tore something. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is shutting down this Cowboy drive. What matters is getting the ball back so Flacco can run off some clock, put another bunch of points on the board.

  I head for the sidelines, and as I leave the field I let myself feel whatever it is I’m feeling. Finally. For the first time, I consider the pain in my triceps and think what it might mean. I have some idea. I know what a burn feels like. I know what a strain feels like. I know this is something else. A tear, most likely. I know it’s not good.

  Before I can call for help, I’m met by our team doctor, Leigh Ann Curl. She’s been with us my whole career, travels with the team, knows how I like to fight through all these aches and pains. She knows the game, knows her players. She saw me signal to leave the game in a key spot, saw me favoring my arm as I made for the sidelines, saw me wincing, so she crosses to meet me. She takes my arm at the elbow, pushes gently at the back of it, tells me my triceps is gone. She doesn’t need an MRI to tell me what she can see with her naked eye, a gentle touch.

  I say, “What?”

  She shows me a dent, almost like a divot, on my upper arm. She says, “This tells us your triceps popped. It’s just gone, Ray.”

  She presses on that dent and a pain shoots through me like nothing I’d ever felt before.

  I say, “No big thing.” And really, at just this moment, it isn’t—not to me.

  She starts crying.

  I say, “Why are you crying? I’m the one busted up his triceps.”

  She says, “Because this is no way for your career to end.”

  It’s like I don’t even hear her—like I won’t let myself hear her. I say, “My career’s not ending, Doc.” Certain, matter-of-fact.

  She says, “Ray, nobody’s ever come back from an injury like this. It’s never been done. It can’t be done.”

  I look at her and smile. It throws her that I’m smiling, confuses her. She knows what this pain must be like. She knows what her diagnosis means, the weight of her words. She’s always been straight with me, same way she is with all her players, and here she thinks maybe she hasn’t made herself clear. But she has—better believe it she has. It’s just that those four words—It can’t be done—are like lighter fluid to me. I hear those words, and it’s like pouring a gallon of the stuff on an open flame. It lights me up and sets me off, leaves me thinking there’s nothing I can’t do.

  She says, “Why are you smiling, Ray? This isn’t good. Your triceps is torn.”

  I say, “I’m smiling because we’re gonna win the Super Bowl. I’m smiling because this injury is nothing.”

  She says, “You’re not hearing me, Ray.”

  I say, “Oh, I hear you, Doc. But you’re not hearing me. I’m gonna be okay.”

  We must make an odd picture, the two of us. The doc, crying, trying to comfort me, trying to give it to me straight—and me, smiling, trying to tell her she’s wrong about me, off in her diagnosis. We’re both right, of course. In our own minds
, in our own experience, we’re each reacting to the same set of circumstances in our own way, each of us dead solid certain that the way we see it is the way it will go.

  She asks me again why I don’t seem more upset—because, hey, she just told me my career is over. My arm is hanging like a sack of flour.

  So I’m straight with her, same way she’s always straight with me. I say, “Man deals with the possible, Doc. God deals with the impossible.”

  Then I turn to face the field, knowing I’m in good hands.

  ONE

  Say My Name

  Some folks have it hard.

  Some folks have it harder still.

  For me, the hard part was mostly in what I didn’t have. I didn’t have a father. I do now, but I didn’t then. The man I now know as my father, Elbert Ray Jackson, is a father in DNA only. He claims the title, but he didn’t earn it. He looks like me, moves like me, but he never took the time to know me, never played the part. He left the day I was born. He came back a couple years later—stayed long enough to father my twin sisters, Laquesha and Lakeisha, but not long enough to pick me up or change my diaper. Far as I ever knew, he was gone the next day, the same deal all over again, and as I write this I think of the cycle of abandonment that’s colored my family. Every twenty years, there’s been another link broken, another hard road laid, going back four generations. My son Ray Lewis III is nineteen years old; I am thirty-nine; my father is fifty-nine; his father, my grandfather, is seventy-nine; and my great-grandfather is ninety-nine. And the only one who’s grown up with a father is my son.

  And then on the other side of all that was my mother, Sunseria Smith. Oh my God, my mother had it hard, and it only got harder once she started having kids, but it was because of her strength that my younger brother and sisters were able to get by. It was because of her resilience that we had a chance. That I had a chance. Really, everything I do, everything I am—it’s because of this good, sweet, proud woman.