Written by Jane McManus at ESPN.com
Ray Rice will contribute to the NFL’s annual social responsibility presentation to players and staff this year. The former running back for the Ravens, whose career came to an end after video emerged of him punching his fiancée in an elevator in 2014, will discuss the impact his behavior had on his life.
“We shot a video that just highlights everything that I’ve been talking about decision-making, how things happened in my life, how things unfolded,” Rice said. The guys get to hear it from me, how it unraveled.”
This is the first time Rice has formally worked with the NFL since the elevator video became public in September 2014. The segment he worked on with the NFL will be a short component of what is generally an hourlong program for all its employees.
“I’ve been building relationships with [the NFL front office], and it’s a mutual thing,” Rice told ESPN. “The NFL has a great platform, they reach a lot of people. It’s part of our responsibility to reach out for not the on field opportunity but off field too.”
This is the fourth year that the NFL has put together a video and educational program related specifically to conduct issues. Last year the emphasis was on DUI, sexual assault and gun safety. In past years, the NFL asked former wide receiver Donte Stallworth to participate in a video on driving under the influence. Stallworth was suspended from the NFL for a year in 2009 after pleading guilty to DUI manslaughter.
This year the NFL is hoping to focus on healthy choices and healthy masculinity for the video, which will ultimately be released for schools and other programs to use in educating athletes and students.
“We started bouncing the idea around where what if Ray could share the journey he’d been on and the choices that led him to his series of bad decisions that led him to where he is now,” said Anna Isaacson, the NFL’s senior vice president of social responsibility. “And that wasn’t an easy decision to make.”
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