I can see it now.
Ray Lewis cha-cha slides to the pulpit, the media eagerly awaiting his latest manifesto.
He takes a spritz, clears his throat and declares, “God willed it so, this deer antler extract, and so it is my will.” Spritz.
Invoking the Big Man has gotten you out of stuff like this in the past, right?
That’s the most ridiculous resolution I can come up with to the most ridiculous story since, well, two weeks ago.
Lewis was the most famous of several athletes implicated as customers in a Sports Illustrated story detailing a company called S.W.A.T.S. – Sports with Alternatives to Steroids – that hocked what were nevertheless banned substances. That they got from deer antlers.
These aren’t just any deer though — they’re enchanted deer from Middle Earth. According to Christopher Key, one-half of the two man operation, the company freeze-dries the antlers of New Zealand-bred deer and extract from them Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1), which is closely related to Human Growth Hormone.
The extract comes in both pill and spray forms, the latter of which is applied under the tongue. Other products sold by Key and his partner Mitch Ross include holographic stickers that are supposed to redirect harmful frequencies, negatively charged water that supposedly hydrates more efficiently and a “beam ray” light bulb that – well, the story mentions something about swine flu.
How is LSU supposed to compete with the Tide, several players of which, yes, were said to have met and done business with Key before the National Championship blowout in 2012, when they’ve got irradiated jackalope blood?
Before you blow a gasket and demand a recount, it doesn’t matter that much.
Every major sports league in America, including the NCAA, has an unenforceable ban on IGF-1; it slips past current tests much like its more infamous cousin hormone. It’s just one more quirk in a broken system. They’re only cheaters if they’re caught, and moral victories don’t mean squat.
But what about AL.com’s story that quotes Key as saying LSU, along with plenty of other SEC schools, also used the stuff? SI verified its reports with recordings provided by Key and only mentioned LSU players indulging in the stickers. He also says to AL.com that this is all just a misunderstanding, that only synthetic IGF-1 is banned, not the natural deer extract kind.
Then why are schools sending cease and desist letters? Wouldn’t they know the rules better than this flamboyant con artist?
This is a guy who claims he cured his own cancer with a ray gun. He can’t prove his own science, so he defends it by imploring scientists to disprove it.
The spray contains small quantities of the banned substance, which may not work on humans in the first place. And those stickers? Their packaging was more effective in tests. The negatively charged water? Physically impossible.
Key was previously fired from another company selling the stickers for overplaying their effects. His partner Ross, formerly a stripper, slanged stolen steroids before “finding Christ.” They’re still dodging court-ordered payments of $5.4 million after an NFL client’s spray contained a steroid that failed a test.
Nearly every single athlete Key boasted about has severed ties, denies any tie ever existed or simply didn’t return SI’s phone calls. The one athlete who initially complied: Lewis, our favorite phony.
Lewis actually appeased SI after a Dec. 23 game, confirming that he spoke to Ross on the day he incurred his tricep injury. He said he’d used the company’s products for “a couple years … the regular stuff, the S.W.A.T.S., the stickers or whatever.”
A far cry from Lewis’s claim on Tuesday: “Two years ago, it was the same report. I wouldn’t give that report or him any of my press. He’s not worthy of that. Next question.” (Yahoo reported two years ago that Key provided text messages from Lewis confirming the linebacker had received a shipment and would need more.)
The conversations ended similarly, with Lewis walking away from SI when the antler extract was specifically brought up. It’s a shame, I truly want to know if the pills “rebuild your brain via your small intestines” like Ross pitched to Lewis.
Read that again. That’s an actual pitch made to an athlete who then became a customer. These delusional players will apparently do anything for an edge until they think they’ll get caught, which probably won’t happen because of inept policies. Sports are a crazy, convoluted thing these days.
It provides just what our society needs: more role models with shit for brains.
Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis speaks during media day for the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
