Ray Rice speaks to Rutgers football team at spring game
PISCATAWAY – - There were a lot of things I expected to see at the Rutgers spring football game Friday night at High Point Solutions Stadium, but Ray Rice on the sideline was not one of them.
The former Scarlet Knights running back, a lightning rod for the domestic abuse epidemic in sports as a then-Baltimore Raven in the NFL, hung with Mohamed Sanu, embraced Gary Nova and took pictures with former teammates.
I would argue that in Kyle Flood's time as the Rutgers head coach, his decision to have Rice attend, and share his story with the team, was the single best decision he's made. And he's made some good ones.
It's less than a year since the horrific video surfaced of Rice knocking his then-fiancee Janay Palmer, now his wife, unconscious in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino.
But if the goal is to produce good people, husbands and fathers, Rice is the cautionary tale of all cautionary tales. That made this the ultimate teachable moment. His words simply cannot be ignored.
"I reached out to Ray,'' Flood said. ``I thought that we had an opportunity for Ray to give a very important message to our football players and he did that today.
"What was the message? The message was very simple. That you can do a lot of great things in your life. You can do charitable works at home and in the cities you're working in, but if you make the wrong decision you're going to have to be accountable for that. And Ray made a wrong decision and he has held himself accountable to it, and he has paid the price for it. And I thought today was an opportunity for him to deliver a message to try to prevent one of our young people from doing that in the future.''
Rice has paid a heavy price. His release by the Ravens may have effectively ended the NFL career of a 28-year-old who has a lot of mileage on his body and has now missed an entire season, with no teams having expressed an interest in signing him as a free agent.
He's a public relations nightmare nobody wants to deal with right now.
It was last November that Rice was reinstated by the NFL after Judge Barbara S. Jones ruled that Rice did not mislead commissioner Roger Goodell about the incident, and should not have been disciplined beyond the initial two-game suspension.
What is the time frame for his reinstatement into the Rutgers family?
It shouldn't be a lifetime ban, especially if there's a way to turn a huge negative into a positive.
"His message was the decision that you make in life can make you or break you,'' senior defensive tackle Darius Hamilton said. "He's been through a lot and I think it meant a lot to him and it meant a lot to us to hear from him just to tell us what he was going through and tell us how he dealt with everything. He really cares about us. He really cares about the players in this program and them making the right decisions, so that meant a lot for us to see him today.
"I know he made a mistake, but I think we all make mistakes. I think everyone deserves a second chance.''
While Rice did not say anything publicly Friday night, he was contrite in a February interview with the Baltimore Sun as he tries to salvage what he can of his career, and his life.
As for Flood, this was the kind of tough decision coaches who truly care about their players make. Because if Rice's words stop one of them from making a similar mistake, or causes them to think before doing something that could cost them everything, then it was worth any public relations fallout it might cause.
Steve Edelson writes for The Asbury Park Press, a Gannett paper.