Ray Rice back in Baltimore: ‘I’m doing what I’ve got to do to get another shot’

Ray Rice back in Baltimore: ‘I’m doing what I’ve got to do to get another shot’
Will an NFL team ever welcome Ray Rice back to football? (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

The Ravens may have cut ties with Ray Rice, but the Baltimore community hasn’t forgotten him.

More than a year removed from being cut by the Ravens after TMZ released video of Rice knocking out his then-fiancée with a punch in an Atlantic City elevator, the former All-Pro running back was back in Baltimore — this time donating cheerleading uniforms designed by now-wife Janay Rice to a team in need.

“Y’all are my new team,” Rice told youth cheerleaders for the Southwest Seminoles in a Baltimore Sun video. He added, “Team means so much more to me today than it did forever. Team means everybody in here, for this community. Team. Together everyone achieves more. That’s what this team is about.”

Of course, Rice, 28, is still holding out hope that an NFL team will give him a second chance.

“Fitness is my life,” he told the Baltimore Sun. “I’m doing what I’ve got to do to get another shot.”

Rice currently lives in Connecticut, but returned to Baltimore when he discovered the story of Derwin Hannah, a truck driver and youth football coach who revitalized a city park from a drug-dealing destination into a youth sports and recreation haven with the help of some friends, according to the local paper. Since the NFL and former Ravens defensive end Michael McCrary had already purchased new uniforms for the Seminoles, Rice and his wife offered to provide their cheerleading squad with new duds as well.

“I was in the community while I was here in Baltimore, and it’s not that easy just to leave and forget about your community,” Rice told the paper through a genuine smile. “This was a community that helped me be a great football player, and they cheered me on, and now I’m able to do something to cheer them on.”

There are many who believe Rice should never play football again — including all 32 NFL teams, it seems — but he is not without his supporters. Some Southwest Seminoles parents sported Rice’s No. 27 jersey, and 16-year-old cheerleader Lauryn Hill told her hometown paper: “This is big for us — I feel loved.”

“Him coming back after all he’s been through, it means a lot to this community — a high-poverty community,” Shanell Adams told the Baltimore Sun. “I never stopped believing in Ray Rice. I’m still a fan. I’m still wishing that he would get on another team. Who am I to judge? Everybody makes mistakes.”

Considering the Dallas Cowboys have spent the past week enabling Greg Hardy, Rice’s absence from the NFL may be more about his inability to play at a high level than a league-wide effort to stand up against domestic violence. No matter how you feel about the man, though, his return to Baltimore was a good thing.