Remembering the late son of former NFL star Ray Lewis
I have no ties to Lewis, other than having rooted against him for years every time the Baltimore Ravens played my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers. But one day in 2010, on assignment for The Palm Beach Post, I got to meet his son.
Ray Lewis III was just 15 but he was already showing promise as a gifted sophomore running back at Lake Mary Prep, a private school just north of Orlando.
A feature story was in order, an advance to the Nov. 7 Miami Dolphins game against the Ravens that would warn Dolphins fans that, as if one Ray Lewis wasn’t enough, they might one day to contend with the hard-hitting linebacker’s son.
"My goal is to be better than my dad,’’ Ray Ray, as his Lake Mary teammates called him, told me in an interview outside the Rams locker room one day after practice.
I wrote the story — headlined Ray Lewis' son 'Ray Ray' making a name for himself in Florida high school football — then basically forgot about Ray Lewis III.
Until a few days ago.
Lewis III was found dead Wednesday in a Central Florida home. He was 28. A police report contained details of a suspected drug overdose.
"The evidence and witness accounts show this incident to be a tragic accident," police said in a statement.
As tributes lit up social media, new stories offered general details about Ray III’s career.
He graduated from Lake Mary Prep in 2013, then started following in his father's footsteps by playing for the University of Miami Hurricanes.
Two years later, he transferred to Coastal Carolina University, where his career came to a halt in 2016. He was dismissed from the team and the university after being indicted by a South Carolina grand jury on a charge of third-degree criminal sexual assault, the Orlando Sentinel reported. After a lengthy investigation, those charges were dropped by law enforcement.
He would later finish his college career off with the Virginia Union Panthers in 2017, and would go on to play indoor football for the Wyoming Mustangs in 2021.
Lewis III’s death prompted me to look up that story I wrote back in 2010, when he was a polite 15-year-old kid with a promising future and the world ahead of him.
And on this Father’s Day, I can’t imagine how Ray Lewis is coping with such a tragic loss.
If you watched the entire clip, I’ll tell you now that Ray Ray was not too far off with his prediction of the score on Nov. 7, 2010. Baltimore beat Miami that day 26-10.
Thank you for reading Palm Beach Stories! Recommend us to a friend. And reach out to me with story ideas!
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