Ray Ray Blog

By BJ Bennett
SouthernPigskin.com

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Former Clemson running back and current Howard tailback Ray Ray McElrathbey, a SouthernPigskin.com contributor, shares his first blog entry.

By Ray Ray McElrathbey
SouthernPigskin.com Contributor

Former Clemson running back and current Howard tailback Ray Ray McElrathbey, a SouthernPigskin.com contributor, shares his first blog entry.

Former Clemson running back Ray Ray McElrathbey is now a junior tailback for the Howard Bison of the MEAC.  McElrathbey has spent the last few years raising his younger brother Fahmarr, in addition to being a successful student-athlete, and has garnered a national following for his efforts.  In the past, McElrathbey has been named ABC News’ Person of the Week, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, won the Keith Jackson Award of Excellence, the 2006 FedEX/FWAA Courage Award and was a nominee for the Sports Illustrated Man of the Year Award.  Now a junior for the Howard Bison in Washington D.C., McElrathbey is starting a new chapter in his life.  You can read the story on how he got to Howard Here.  In his first game of the season last Saturday against Hampton, Ray Ray carried the football five times for 16 yards and caught nine passes for 85 yards a touchdown. Is that sign of good things to come for Ray Ray and Howard? Absolutely considering Ray only practiced twice going into the game because of compliance issues at Howard. 

I graduated; ironically, this milestone that seems to resemble the end of the game is remarkably only halftime.  I’ve had a rough first half filled with setbacks and penalties, but just as if I had won a game feelings of joy and accomplishment fill my spirit.  Why?  You may ask, because after all, the first half has been like a Greek tragedy in a sense.  The emotional highs and lows have been accompanying my 1st and 2nd down plays but the coach upstairs handles 3rd and long situations, never leaving me a stray.  By Grace, I’m here now with an opportunity not only to win the game, but to silence the critics. 

Reflecting back: 1st Quarter

My game plan was not a great one.  Equipped with few weapons to succeed, I just picked up others to suffice.  Where it should have been a motivational speaker with positive things to say there was a rapper reminding me of my struggle.  In place of successful businessmen there were drug dealers, and my life coaches [parents] were absent at my positions meetings.  I continued to play the game with little direction and with no playbook.  I improvised.  Like many athletes, I only worried about the game of football and not the game of life.  In college you’re setup to be a student athlete but entering my freshman year I was an athletic student.  That was the mindset; I was just happy to be there and since I figured football was how I got to college then football was how I would to be able to stay.  I placed an unbelievable burden on myself and let the game I love be the thing that controlled my life, my future, and everything that encompassed me. content/ray1.JPG

As long as football was good so was I.  I didn’t really take the time to embrace the fact that I was a student.  I considered being a student a hindrance because it kept me away from doing the thing I loved.  Like so many, I was consumed in thinking athletics was my only way out.  I believed an athlete was all that I was and all I could ever be and that football was the only way I could be successful.  Those were some of the positions I played and put myself in.  Where I grew up, there were three occupations to be successful: 1. an Athlete 2. Rapper/ Entertainer 3. Drug Dealer.

I was asked for the first time in the third grade to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up.  At the time my dad worked for Atlanta Journal Constitution, the news publication company for Atlanta, delivering papers.  It never seemed to me that he liked his job so I knew I did not want to do that when I grew up.  Other than my father the only men I saw that looked like me [Black-American] that were considered successful in my eyes held one of the above mentioned occupations.  Secretly I admired the extravagant lifestyles of these men.  I did not want my teacher to know that I wanted to be a drug dealer, so at the time I just left my paper blank and when it was my turn to respond I said nothing.

Unfortunately, it was not until middle school that I interacted with a positive role model that looked like me.  A teacher.  I did not know any lawyers, salesmen, or businessmen.  Athletics became my occupation, my safe haven, and my life.  Soon thereafter when I picked up marijuana as a weapon to deal with stress, athletics stepped in as my anti-drug.  I was on a destructive path with only God and athletics to keep me from crossing over.  Halfway through the first quarter the saga continues…..

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