Ray Rice may not player another game in the NFL, but he still greatly wants to be apart of the league.
Asked by “SportsCenter” on Sunday to compare his case to Greg Hardy’s, Rice said he could only speak about his own case.
He did say that if he doesn’t get a second chance, he’d like to work for the league to help raise awareness of the domestic violence issue.
Rice, the former Ravens star, has been unemployed since he was released by the team in September 2014 after a video emerged of him punching his then-fiancée Janay Palmer.
“I honestly would hope so,” Rice said. “I think the NFL has such a huge platform and I’ve seen the platform I had when I was playing, when I would go out and help people. I go out now, and I don’t have an NFL platform, but I’m going out there and helping people out. So if I never played a down again, why not see if I could use their platform to go out there and help make a difference.
“I totally understand what my visual did and the effect it had on society and the survivors of domestic violence,” Rice told ESPN’s SportsCenter on Sunday morning. “So, for me, to never be forgiven … I understand those things, and I totally take full responsibility for my actions. The one thing I can say is … I have made a lifelong decision to raising awareness about this.
“I used to have a situation where kids were like, ‘I wanna be like Ray Rice.’ And now I have to think about kids and parents saying, ‘I don’t want you to be like Ray Rice.’ And that haunts me.”
Rice’s comments come after photos from Hardy’s assault on ex-girlfriend Nicole Holder were released to Deadspin.
Rice continues to train in case he gets the opportunity to play again, and says that he has been talking to young players about not making the same mistakes he did.
“Young rookies, anybody in college … I want to be able to spread all of my experiences to help other people, to make them understand that domestic violence is not OK, not even one time.”
I think Rice’s days as a running back in the NFL are over, but he can definitely help the league spread the word on domestic violence, and the growing issue.
