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The memory forces him to the side of the road. Driving down a nondescript street in a neighborhood near his hometown of Lanham, Md., Jermaine Lewis, kick returner extraordinaire for the Baltimore Ravens, begins to speak softly about missing his son Geronimo. As a precaution, he first pulls his white Lexus to a stop under the shade of a giant oak tree.
He turns down the volume on the 8Ball & MJG CD, takes his hands off the wheel, sinks back into the seat and lets the grief wash over him like a wave.
As Lewis tells it, after Geronimo was stillborn last Dec. 13, he desperately wanted to stay strong in front of his wife, Imara, and he found his refuge in the hospital cafeteria.
After doctors explained that the umbilical cord had become tangled and cut off the baby's lifeline; after unsuspecting fans would stop him in the hall and ask, "boy or girl?"; after he held his son for the first -- and last -- time; even after nurses handed him a tiny, green, silk-covered box with his son's effects -- footprints, photos, booties, hair clippings -- he'd walk to the cafeteria, fill up his tray with food he had no appetite for, sit by himself in an empty corner and weep.
What else is there to do when the best and worst moments of your life occur at the same time?
He took that silk-covered box home and placed it in the sunroom where it sits, unopened, to this day, the green lace still in a perfectly cinched knot. "The vision I have of my son is so clear and so burned into my head, I don't need to look at those pictures," Lewis says.
Jermaine lewis ravens biography books in order Coach Lewis was a member of the Baltimore Ravens Team that won Super Bowl XXXV against the New York Giants. Lewis finished his 9-year NFL career with catches, 2, Receiving Yards, 7, Return Yards and 23 Touchdowns."After the doctors said, 'We can't find a heartbeat,' I remember not being able to keep it all in. I was in shock. I was in intense pain. I remember being mad. Mad at God. I remember thinking, 'Why?' I remember saying to myself, 'God took him for a reason.' I just had to find out why."
Lewis named his son after the Apache leader, as a tribute to someone who would never surrender.
So on Christmas Eve, 11 days after his son's death, with the words "Geronimo: fallen soldier" written on his wristbands, Lewis went out and did what all parents who lose a child pray they have the courage to do: He found the strength to rise above his sorrow and create a legacy for his son.
In the regular-season finale against the Jets, Lewis, 26, seized the moment and returned two punts for touchdowns -- 89 yards and 54 yards -- in a win that was crucial to setting up the Ravens' postseason path.
Jermaine lewis ravens biography books Jermaine Edward Lewis (born October 16, ) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected in the fifth round (rd overall) of the NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens, who he played for untilBefore the end of his first game back, Lewis had joined an elite return club, becoming just the third man in NFL history to twice return two punts back for scores in a single game. After each score that day, Lewis pointed toward the heavens and gently waved to his little boy -- the one with the big feet, the sweet pudgy cheeks and the curly dark hair.
"That game gave us what we needed the most," says Imara. "Hope."
Beyond the strategic punch that his returns gave the anemic Ravens offense, Lewis' courageous performance inspired the team and set the emotionally explosive tone Baltimore rode all the way to a Super Bowl championship. "The inner strength he gained in dealing with the situation with his son helped Jermaine refind his stride," says Baltimore head coach Brian Billick.
"It catapulted him to a hell of a postseason and, in turn, had a major effect on this team. Every other time Jermaine touched the ball, we just expected something spectacular to happen."
It was Lewis' yard punt return that helped put the Ravens in position for their first score in Super Bowl XXXV. Then, immediately after the Giants' Ron Dixon had wrestled away the momentum with a yard kickoff return to pull the Giants to within 10 late in the third quarter, Lewis trotted onto the field and called for the Wedge Right return.
Ray lewis ravens Jermaine Edward Lewis is a retired American football wide receiver who played in the National Football League.Waiting for the ball, he massaged his wristbands, each of which said, "Geronimo Lewis, Rest in Peace."
"I've been knocked out many times on the football field," says the 5'7", pound Lewis. "But my attitude now is, 'Screw it, I'm bringing it, nothing can stop me!' I've already survived the worst thing a person can go through.
To me, a kick return is nothing."
The instant he corralled the ball at the 16, Lewis noticed the field open up along the right sideline. But like all great poker players and kick returners, he didn't want to tip his hand too early. Instead he shot straight up the middle, crashed through the dangerous wall of flesh that is the NFL return wedge, kept his balance after his heel was clipped, and then sprang, as if powered Crouching Tiger-style, toward the Baltimore bench.
As he broke down the right sideline, his blockers shifting into place, the end zone quickly coming into view, Lewis reverted back to his days as an Olympic-caliber sprinter, whispering to himself, "Stay loose, get those knees up, pump the arms, pump the arms."
"You can talk about speed and blocking and moves and everything," says Lewis, who has taken seven kicks to the house in five seasons.
Jermaine lewis ravens biography books for sale: Coach Lewis was a member of the Baltimore Ravens Team that won Super Bowl XXXV against the New York Giants. Lewis finished his 9-year NFL career with catches, 2, Receiving Yards, 7, Return Yards and 23 Touchdowns.
"But I know it was G-Mo pushing players out of the way for me. The holes just seemed bigger. I always knew he was with me, but after that I knew he had changed me. He put my whole life into proper perspective." As he had done in the Jets game, when Lewis reached the end zone, he pointed toward the sky, but this time it was to thank God for the peace, the hope and the strength he needed to take control of his grief and honor his son.
In an instant, some million viewers were introduced to Geronimo Lewis, and a father's prayer was answered: His son would not be forgotten.
And certainly, somewhere in that global audience there were grieving parents -- struggling with a similar ordeal, fighting just to face each day -- who now had a role model for their own battle.
"Jermaine showed millions of people around the world that it is possible to get through something like this," says Imara.
After the game, while the rest of the Ravens partied, Lewis collapsed in his hotel room and spent most of the night in prayer. He realized the easy part was over. The next day he would step out of the spotlight and away from the diversion of football.
He would leave the cheering crowds and supportive teammates behind and return home to a silent house and an empty nursery painted in Ravens purple. "What keeps you going is that you learn to appreciate what you have because it could be gone tomorrow," says Lewis. "But the pain of losing a child, to describe it to others, you can't do it.
So you deal with it on your own."
Think, for a second, how often your own mind is filled with loving, warm thoughts about your children or family members. Now flip those feelings to heart-wrenching sorrow and you get an understanding of what Lewis and his wife have been through during the off-season. "It comes down to a constant battle," says Imara, "of whether you are going to triumph over this or succumb."
Meanwhile, Lewis' lightning left the Giants reeling with an entirely different kind of closure.
"We watched Ron Dixon score and we were all like, 'Thank you, Jesus!'" says Giants linebacker Micheal Barrow. "And then we watched the Ravens return their kick, and we were all standing there going, 'Oh Lord No.'"
Adds Billick, "The Giants would have been better off had they not returned their kick. What Jermaine did to them was much more emotionally destructive than had they come away with no points at all."
As Lewis tightroped his way down the sideline, matching him stride for stride on the brown shag carpet of his living room back in Baltimore was Larry Colbert, his high school track coach.
In , at Eleanor Roosevelt High in Greenbelt, Colbert molded Lewis into the country's top prep sprinter. (As payback, Lewis plunked down $5, for new track uniforms after the Super Bowl.) After he set the national indoor record in the meters ( seconds) and clocked the second-fastest time in the country in the (), Track & Field News named Lewis its Athlete of the Year.
Bruce Jenner watched him run and promptly tabbed him a future Olympian. "Had he chosen to stick with track," says the year-old Colbert, who has set numerous age-group world records in the and , "guys like Maurice Greene would be looking up at the back of Jermaine Lewis."
Instead, Lewis chose to focus on football, close to home at the University of Maryland.
After clocking a in the 40 as a freshman, Lewis went on to set the Terps' career records for catches (), receiving yards (2,) and TD grabs (21). The Ravens selected him in the fifth round of the draft, and by his second season -- despite missing five starts due to knee and ankle injuries -- he led the NFL with a yard punt return average while piling up 2, all-purpose yards and eight TDs.
"Watching Jermaine get free in the open field is a horrible, horrible picture," says Bengals special teams coach Al Roberts. "You can't go one-on-one with him because he's better than anyone you can put on the field. He ranks right up there with Mel Gray and Billy 'White Shoes' Johnson."
Though there's a long list of pure speed guys who have failed in the NFL, Lewis' disciplined but daredevil 'tude helped him transfer his track talents -- explosive moves, extreme focus and extraordinary finishing speed -- onto the football field.
"Jermaine Lewis has the same kind of effect on teams that Barry Sanders did," says Billick.
"Teams sit on pins and needles waiting for him to break a big one. It's that cumulative emotional effect that just wears them down."
In Lewis made the Pro Bowl as a return specialist, but the next year Billick noticed a disturbing trend. As the season wore on, Lewis seemed to wear down. The turbo boost just wasn't there. Billick says it was happening again late last season, until Geronimo's death forced Lewis to take a timeout from football.
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Jermaine Edward Lewis (born October 16, ) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected in the fifth round (rd overall) of the NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens, who he played for untilThe unwanted break gave Lewis time to refresh his legs and rekindle his kamikaze spirit -- the same attitude that as a teenager made him think he could jump out and stop a runaway car rolling down the street. (The car plowed him over and dragged him half a block until someone jumped in and yanked the parking brake.) It's no secret how he finished the season.
Because of Billick's concerns about Lewis' durability and the team's cap problems, the Ravens asked Lewis to take a salary cut -- from $ million to $ million plus incentives -- and concentrate exclusively on special teams.
Balancing the temptation of being released and testing the open market with his desire to be close to home -- he shares custody of his 4-year-old son, J.J., from a previous relationship -- Lewis decided to accept the pay cut and stay put.
"I want to affect the game," Lewis says. "You obviously get more chances to do that as a wide receiver, but right now, for this team, that's not my role and I'm cool with that.
I feel like I learned a lot those last few weeks of the season. I have confidence now. I feel like I'm coming into the season hot. The only thing left for me to do now is return a punt and a kickoff for a TD in one game."
Just a few days after renegotiating with the Ravens, Jermaine and Imara threw their first big fundraiser for the Geronimo Lewis Foundation, which will, in part, help low-income couples pay for infertility treatments.
"My boy just doesn't want to go away," says a beaming Lewis. "I guess he just wants to stay on people's minds and teach them and help them."
After several sessions at a speed camp in Florida, the next big social event for Lewis will be the ceremony to receive his Super Bowl ring. Sitting out on the deck of his home in Boring, Md., this spring, Lewis was eating freshly beer-steamed crabs and daydreaming about the size, color and shape of those ostentatious baubles.
After the Super Bowl, Lewis had said he might wear the ring only once and then put it with the rest of G-Mo's things in the green box that sits just a few feet away. "Man, world champions," he gasps. "After everything, sometimes it just doesn't seem real. The touchdowns, the wins, the Super Bowl, the parade, all in my hometown.
Everything, all the success, I've just been blessed."
Lewis' voice then trails off a bit and he turns to stare out into the 11 acres of woods that surround his house. "Of course," he whispers, "I'd give it all back in a second "
This article appears in the June 11 issue of ESPN The Magazine.