Ray Lewis Takes Super Bowl Stage

Wednesday, January 24th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) â€” The security guards opened the floodgates, and the reporters swarmed through, race-walking toward the podium where Ray Lewis sat grinning, awaiting the onslaught.

Notebooks, tape recorders and bulky cameras flailed about as the crowd pressed forward to surround the Baltimore Ravens linebacker.

Thus began 60 grueling minutes to determine who's will was stronger Tuesday â€” the linebacker's or the media's. And just like many of the games themselves, the main event of Super Bowl media day didn't quite live up to the hype.

``I'm not here to please the country,'' Lewis said.

Nor was he there to inform, enlighten or discuss the double murder case that occurred after last year's Super Bowl in Atlanta. Lewis eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice, landed on probation and received a $250,000 fine from the NFL.

This could have been a time to clear the air â€” the way recovering alcoholic Kerry Collins of the Giants did Monday in his riveting mea culpa â€” but Lewis chose not to.

In his opinion, the most viable topic of conversation was easy to figure.

``Football, football, football,'' he said.

That's not to say the hour of probing was devoid of juicy tidbits.

Lewis talked about role models, the American legal system and his mother. He compared himself to Jesus, Charles Barkley and Mike Singletary. He gave just enough information to keep people there, but not quite enough to unearth anything new.

There was no explosion, no tirade and not much of a window opened to his soul.

``The thing is, Jesus didn't please everybody,'' Lewis said. ``He was spit on, slashed at, talked about. But guess what? He hung his head and never said a mumbling word. That's my attitude. You can go on and on, asking how I feel about this, how I feel about that. But that's not going to change a lot of things. It never will.''

The obsession over Lewis gave the rest of the Ravens' session something of an empty feel.

One of the most popular figures in media days past, the chatty, quotable Shannon Sharpe, drew only a modest-sized crowd. Ravens owner Art Modell was surrounded, but hardly unreachable.

``My feet aren't big enough to stamp out all the brush fires,'' Modell said, commenting on the attention being paid to Lewis. ``I would hope that people would leave him alone.''

Ravens coach Brian Billick was hoping so, too, when he gave a meandering monologue Monday, during which he called the media ``reprehensible'' and ``ambulance chasers.''

At media day, he defended his speech.

``I tried to address it. I think the only hostility I instigated was from those who may have felt like they didn't act properly,'' Billick said. ``If anybody thought there weren't going to be questions about Ray Lewis at this session, it was mistaken.''

Collins held the audience rapt Monday, detailing the excesses of his alcoholism. His hope was to prevent a repeat at media day. It took all of five questions for the topic to resurface. Soon after, he was talking about talking about his troubles.

``This has been good for me,'' Collins said. ``I knew there would be a lot of questions, so I wanted to give everybody a chance to ask all their questions early in the week so I could focus on nothing but the game as we got closer to game time.''

Lewis wanted to start focusing right away. During his hour on stage, he seemed to lighten up only when the subject turned to football. He seemed to enjoy talking about his teammates, his defensive player of the year award and the comparisons he has drawn to Singletary and Dick Butkus.

But eventually, the subject always turned back to Atlanta.

``You all can say what you want to say, you all can write what you want to write,'' he said. ``The only difference is, I'm not going to speak about it. So, the person you want it from, it's not going to come from.''

Finally, the clock at Raymond James Stadium ticked to zero. Teammate Corey Harris shouted, ``Ray, time's up, you can get out of there.''

Lewis took the cue and ducked out quickly, his obligation fulfilled, but his life and mind almost certainly no better understood.