I Feel Like Going On: Life, Game, and Glory by Ray Lewis & Daniel Paisner

Author:Ray Lewis & Daniel Paisner [Lewis, Ray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2015-10-19T22:00:00+00:00

NINE

Atlanta

Four seasons in, my career was going good. Every year, we inched a little closer to competitive. First year, 4–12. Second year, 6–9–1. Third year, 6–10. Fourth year, 8–8. Led the team in tackles every year. Led the league in tackles twice, put it out there that the Baltimore Ravens defense was a force. Those first few years, we might not beat you on the scoreboard, but we would beat you down on the field.

The word they use in football to describe an 8–8 team is respectable. I always hated that word—left me thinking you’ve been wracking your brain to come up with something nice to say and this was about the best you could do. So on the one hand it was a good thing, to have fought our way back to respectability, but on the other hand it was a knock, because it told us how far we still needed to go—in people’s minds, at least. End of the day, we were average, middle of the pack. We were nowhere. But we told ourselves nowhere was okay, long as we were headed somewhere. As long as we were rising. And we were. As a team, we were on the move—just look at how things were about to pop for us that next season.

Me, I was headed out to Hawaii for my third-straight Pro Bowl, but the plan was to fly from Atlanta, right after Super Bowl XXXIV—which was being played there in the Georgia Dome. Tough to keep track of all those Roman numerals, but that was the year the St. Louis Rams beat the Tennessee Titans 23–16, time running out as Kevin Dyson was tackled just a couple inches short of the goal line. Folks remember that Super Bowl, man—but that final drive was just one reason they remember it.

What a lot of folks don’t remember about that game was that there was a major snowstorm up and down the East Coast. That whole week—January 25, 2000—flights were being canceled every which way. The day I was supposed to leave Baltimore, it was bad upon bad. You couldn’t get out of that airport for trying. I had a good mind to cancel my trip, to just sit tight, but I had a week’s worth of commitments lined up—an “NFL Experience” event, autograph signings and all these different appearances I had to make. I hated to cancel, because I needed the extra money, and because I’d given my word. Folks were counting on me to show. All these wheels were in motion.

I remember talking on the phone to my mother as I was scrambling to leave Baltimore, find another flight. She said, “Don’t go to Atlanta, Junior.” Three times, she called to tell me to stay put, ride out the storm, head out to Hawaii from Baltimore after the game. It’s like she had a premonition, and she said it clearly: “Junior, it’s crazy out there. You don’t need to be going nowhere.”

No, I guess I didn’t.

But I’d made all these commitments, set my mind to it.

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