Coach's Corner

-- "Sympathy for the Devil"

It's been an ugly, tension-filled two weeks down in the Sunshine State. The boundless chasm of airtime and print space in the 14 days between the conference championships and the Super Bowl invariably produces a gentle tone somewhere between the Miss America Pageant and Mr. Rogers. Not much edge, as they say these days. If a wide receiver decides to get acupuncture for a sore toe or a player picks up a speeding ticket on the Mac Arthur Causeway, the bored media will swoop down with the same vigor as if they discovered Fidel Castro cross-dressing in a South Beach nightclub.

But this year is different. For one thing, the two clubs in the NFL's showcase are almost unbearably ugly in themselves -- both starting quarterbacks have proved themselves over many games and many years and with many teams to be physically, emotionally, psychologically, and mentally incapable of running a pro offense -- but there's more to it than that. Blood -- the real stuff -- is in the aqua-blue water of Tampa Bay.

The chum in the water wears No.52 for the Baltimore Ravens: sullen, angry linebacker Ray Lewis. The fishermen -- all piled aboard one of those drift-fishing boats so popular down in Florida -- are the media. The bait is the double homicide Lewis is so closely associated with, which occurred, ironically, a year ago tonight. The victim here is a question of point of view. If you believe Lewis is a lying scumbag with bloody hands, you won't have much sympathy for the linebacker's "It's behind me" dance. If, on the other hand, you're a libertarian sort, you might accept the American code that the man's had his day in court and, in a manner of speaking, done his time.

The media, unable to work up much enthusiasm for 14 days of Trent-Dilfer-returns-to-Tampa-a-hero stories, clearly chooses path number 1. Ravens coach Brian Billick rolled the ball out with a venomous media-day tirade before the last Raven was off the jetway. Billick frothed with hostility as he all but challenged the assembled scribes to a no-holds-barred WWF cage match if they so much as mutter the phrase "double homicide." The media, assured of safety by their overwhelming numbers, proceeds to hound and badger Lewis every time he comes anywhere near a camera, notebook, or tape recorder.

It's my view that Lewis is a walking, talking illustration of the power of evil over good, bad mojo trumping good mojo, and Superman stripping off his cape to, at last, reveal Lucifer incarnate. But, so what? The fact is, Lewis is correct. That night in Atlanta is, as he notes repeatedly, behind him. What does the media hope to accomplish with all this hounding? Do they anticipate Ray will stride to the podium and declare he can't sleep at night, he sees those poor dead guys in his dreams, and he's so ashamed of himself that as soon as he picks up his MVP trophy, he intends to go back to Atlanta and put himself back in jail? I venture this isn't the consensus opinion.

What then? Short of delusional thinking even the massed media couldn't be accused of, what you have is nothing but a contemporary form of bear-baiting with a press conference serving as a substitute for the cage. Constant grilling about a crime well past the last stanchions of the legal system can only be intended to bait the linebacker into whipping out a knife or at least grabbing an "innocent journalist." Instead, Lewis stays relatively calm. But this ugly incident casts a sinister vibe around the NFL's feel-good week. The Giants, by virtue of not having any accused murderers on their team, are cast as the good guys, the Ravens the bad. Guess who wins?

Meanwhile, the real-deal-feel-good story is taking place, unnoticed and under-reported, half a world away, in Australia. An American tennis prodigy burst on the scene a decade ago at the age of 13. She became -- with an all-American smile, a cheerful disposition, and a forehand so heavy it knocked the rackets out of the hands of adult pros -- Madison Avenue's (and thus America's) sweetheart by 14, a Wimbledon semifinalist at 15. A year later she suffered a public meltdown after a first-round loss at the U.S. Open. She disappeared from tennis -- then reappeared in the newspapers over the next few years in police mug shots, her once-pixyish face bloated, mascara smearing her cheeks. Shoplifting, drugs, bad friends. Was it possible Jennifer Capriati was only 17?

While the Western press is raking Ray Lewis in Tampa, Jennifer Capriati -- now 24 and playing virtually errorless tennis -- pounds the crap out of Lindsay Davenport and Martina Hingis and makes it all the way, really all the way back, winning her first-ever major title. I stay up late and watch her last three matches. It's fine stuff. Might even make a grown man cry. If it were a movie, nobody would watch it. Come on, get real!

But it happened. Most of you didn't notice. Not your fault. Don't ever take points and bet against Old Scratch. It's a losing proposition. Every time.