Earlier this month, Ray Lewis came under fire for saying that the Tuck Rule is the only reason we know who Tom Brady is. And during last Sunday's Pro Bowl, he criticized the Patriots, saying that if they end up winning the Super Bowl, there should be an asterisk next to the title, in light of the ongoing Deflategate controversy.
But Lewis didn't want to talk about any of this when we called him in Arizona the day following the Pro Bowl. Instead, we discussed Spike TV's upcoming reality series Coaching Bad , which sees Lewis and anger management counselor Christian Conte attempt to reform overly abusive youth league coaches. If the teasers are any indication, it looks to be a kind of cross between Intervention and Friday Night Tykes (which airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the Esquire Network, by the way). The show, which premieres Sunday, February 8, is a harsh but necessary reminder of what kids who play sports stand the risk of being subjected to on a day-to-day basis if parents don't take the effort to get to know who is coaching their children.
For Lewis, it's all about making sure coaches understand the influence they have over the kids they have been trusted to not only care for but to teach. Coaches are more than just sports instructors; when they're with the kids on their teams, they're surrogate parents, and their impact should not be underestimated. In addition to his mission to reform youth coaching practices, we were able to talk with Lewis about the NFL post-season—although Deflategate was off the table—as well as what he really meant by that comment about Tom Brady.
ESQUIRE.COM: What made you want to make a show about reforming abusive coaches?
RAY LEWIS: Coaching is something I’ve been a part of my entire life. One of the things I’ve always been very passionate... I’ve always had a problem with the things that people would say out of their mouths to other people. I’ve always had a problem with that, because a lot of people, they don’t have enough information to speak to people a certain way or speak about people a certain way. Everyone has an opinion on your situation, your circumstance, what you’re going through, and nobody has a clue. That’s what coaches do to kids. They don’t know what backgrounds they come from. They don’t know what environment they have to go back to. They don’t know if they ate that day, if they’re going back to a meal, if they have an abusive family. They don’t know what they’re going home to. One of the things I’ve always said is that if you’re given the ability to coach kids, then you’re really given the ability to be a father or parent of some sort. That’s why the issue for me is such a huge issue. Some of these kids are spending more time with the coaches than they are with their parents. The coach is supposed to be raising these kids, not belittling them and talking to them like the world is coming to an end.
ESQ: What kind of first-hand experience have you had dealing with abusive coaches, either personally or that you've experienced as your kids have grown up playing sports?
RL: I’ve seen it all the way through. From Little League on up you have tough coaches that are going to curse the hell out of you. It was very rare to have calm coaches. You get up to different levels. You get up to college and the NFL and you get paid all this money in the NFL and these coaches come out and want to curse you like they’re the smartest people in the world. It’s a bad place when you see sometimes how coaches treat people. I don’t even want to say players. I want to say people. They’re people before they become a player. It’s a passionate thing for me at this level in life because something has to change. Somebody has to give a wakeup call to our coaching world to ask them real questions and show them that if you have kids, then you know there is no way you can talk to somebody else like that, because that’s somebody’s child.
ESQ: Why do you think some of these coaches feel it's acceptable to curse and demean 10-year-old kids? Do you think there's a kind of romantic aspect to the tough, no-nonsense coach portrayed in movies and in the media that enables this behavior?
RL: Some of them have different issues, but what was interesting, doing this research and going through this with these coaches, is how we found out that a bunch of them are dealing with deeper issues from their past. That’s the trigger that never changed. That’s the fire that gets them going rah rah rah. When I started watching some of the footage, some of the film of men and women coaches treating players the same way, I’m looking at them and thinking, What's wrong! They messed up on a play. Wait a minute. You're taking this way out of context. But when you sit down with them and you really start to get into their lives and you spend time with people, which is what I’m recommending with this show... Parents needs to spend more time with who they’re trusting their kids with. That’s one of the nuggets going forward. Find out who these coaches are. Figure out their environment and what kind of problems they have, and see if you want your child involved with that. I think this show will open up eyes for parents to say maybe I need to go check on my child.
ESQ: These are extreme cases you're dealing with on the show, but do you ever think, at higher levels of competition, overly aggressive or "abusive" coaching can be a good thing? That that style of coaching may sometimes be helpful for certain players?
RL: Now this is me, but if you want to get something done, there is always an alternate route other than cursing somebody and belittling them. There’s always an alternate route. If you want to get any message across. Everybody has an opinion, and everybody has their own way of doing things, but the bottom line is that when you affect someone else, you should pay closer attention to how you treat people. Period. It doesn’t go any farther than that. Everybody has the ability to say yes or no based on how you approach them. But if you come at them the way some of these coaches and some of these people come at them, you don’t have a chance. You send them back to places that you just never know.
We’re in a tough place in this world. There are a lot of kids giving up very early. Scripture says it takes a village to raise one child, and that’s what these coaches are going to have to go back and understand. It takes a village to really educate these children and really give them what parents can’t give them all the time. Parents may be always working, parents may be in and out. When you’re dropping them off with coaches, the first thing kids should be coming back and saying is, ‘Mom, guess what I learned today? Guess what coach taught me today?’ Most of my coaches, my high school coach, he became a father figure in my life. Yes, he was my coach, but he became a father figure in my life because of the way he treated me, regardless of my circumstances.
ESQ: Could you see yourself coaching at the NFL level?
RL: See, so at the NFL level everything is money-driven. That’s why I like college football a lot, because it’s the dream that you’re chasing. The dream of one day possibly making it, with the harsh reality that only one percent make it. So I could see myself coaching at different levels, but my coaching style would be totally different and totally unique. Everybody will be held accountable for their own actions. I’m going to put it out there, I’m going to say it one time. You look at things now with all of these young kids coming into the game. If you go back through my entire career of me being mic’d up and all these different things… My momma raised me so well. I have so much respect for people that are my elders. You aren’t going to hear me cursing around people that are 60 and 70 years old. That’s why my coaching style will be very unique. One of my first rules is to respect your elders. Period. Then we’ll go from there. But who knows? Who knows what the future holds? It’s all on parenting, one way or another. I don’t care what level it is, it comes back to people learning how to deal with people.
ESQ: Switching to the NFL, how gratifying has it been for you to see the Seahawks dominating like they have in a time where everyone seems to place the emphasis on offense.
RL: In an era where everything is offensive and how can you make the offense better, when you actually see defense being played like the Seattle Seahawks are playing defense, you appreciate the game differently. You’re talking to one of the pilots of arguably the greatest defense in history. That being said, it’s a humbling thing when you know the things they had to overcome with all of the different rules nowadays when you watch Seattle play football. Going back three Super Bowls, from my last one [in 2013], if you go back enough, we put all this emphasis on this great offensive production, but the majority of these Super Bowls, and this is the old cliché you’ve heard before: Offense wins games, defense wins championships. That’s what is starting to be shown again. Regardless of how well you can be offensively, if you have a great defense, you can deal with any offense. That’s what the Seattle Seahawks are showing right now and that’s what we started years ago. If a team has a bunch of athletes like the Seahawks have got, then you’ve got problems.
ESQ: There's been a lot of parity in the league as of late, but the Seahawks looks like they could have the chance to turn into a team that dominates with more consistency than we've seen in a long time. Do you like it when there are one or two truly dominant teams at the top of the league that everyone is gunning for year after year, or would you rather have it be wide open every season?
RL: Do you know what makes them so good? Seriously? It’s because they’ve made a commitment as a team, as brothers. It’s a brotherhood. In a day and time where free agency takes away the loyalty of the game, Seattle has done it different. If you think about what they’ve done. Seattle built around, their total infrastructure… Russell Wilson is still playing on his rookie contract, but everyone else around him is being signed up. The Shermans, the Kam Chancellors, the Earl Thomases, the D-line. You think about what they’re saying in their locker room, they’re saying, ‘Let’s keep this together as long as we can, man. We all want to make money. I understand that...’ But in an era that’s run on free agency, everybody’s going where the dollars are. They go after the dollars and they forget that the game will always come down to brotherhood. So when you find a team that dominant, it didn’t just happen because it happened. It happened because they made a commitment to stay with each other that long to do it. And it’s beautiful to see, because you don’t see a lot of teams staying together that long anymore.
ESQ: Which players have impressed you the most this year that you feel haven't gotten the recognition they deserve?
RL: Watching the season for me is about watching the chess matches. It’s not a player per se, but one of the best sequences of events was the Green Bay and Seattle game two weeks ago. The intriguing part of that game, and the only reason I sat back and watched that game like I did, is that you’ve got two masters: Aaron Rodgers’s offense and Seattle’s defense. How else could you draw up an NFC championship? That’s the thing that impressed me the most, the chess match of decisions that ultimately determined the outcome. It’s poetry to watch the game when the game is left alone, when there’s not a bunch of flags on the ground. Let them play! Let them play, man. Let the game take care of itself. That was one of the games of the year that I really appreciated being played out the way it was played out.
ESQ: Speaking of letting the players play, you recently made some comments about the Tuck Rule. What did you think of Dez Bryant's "catch" the week before? How does that compare?
RL: We’re defining legacies and things by rules. Rules should not define who goes on and who plays for the Lombardi. It should be the players. That’s all my argument is. My argument is to stop doing this. Everybody wants to say, Oh my gosh! You said Tom Brady may not be... That’s not what I freaking said. I simply said that the Tuck Rule took two organizations in two completely different directions. That’s a fact. The Raiders went backward and the Patriots went forward. One decision changed that, and that’s what I’m saying. The refs are so confused themselves because there’s so many rules. It’s like, 'Oh my gosh I’ve never seen this many rules in my life.' And everybody’s trying to govern this and justify that. Now they’ve got commentators coming on and speaking about the rules and it’s too much. It becomes…To me, it’s personal. If you’re anybody who plays this game and have put enough years in. I’ve always said to the refs to not be the ones to decide the game. Let the players dictate the outcome.
