Last week I took a stand against Matt Elam representing the Ravens at the Ed Block Courage Awards Banquet given his recent arrest in Miami stemming from multiple felony charges. I’m happy to say that this evening I learned that Elam will not be in attendance for any of the Ed Block events scheduled for this week.
The following statement was shared with me by Brett Dickinson, Director of Operations at the Ed Block Courage Foundation:
After Matt Elam’s incident, the Foundation contacted the Baltimore Ravens on how we should proceed. With the Ed Block Courage Award as the only league-wide honor that is voted on strictly by the players, the team decided to move forward with Matt as their recipient, as it was decided by his teammates. The organization had no influence over the nomination.
They did agree that the Foundation should do what was in our best interest. As the main focus of our event is the community outreaches at the Rita R. Church Rec Center and the Baltimore Ravens Courage House (St. Vincent’s Villa), we decided to not include him in those events.
Former Baltimore Raven and 2007 Ed Block Courage Award Recipient, Samari Rolle will be representing the Baltimore Ravens throughout all of our events.
I respect the Ravens desire to protect the integrity of the player voting system by not interfering with the players’ choice for the Ravens Ed Block Courage Award. I also respect the Foundation for preserving the integrity of the award by choosing not to include Elam in any of the festivities, particularly those involving the children of the Courage House.
That said, I do hope that Elam uses his recent setbacks as motivation to redirect his future – to find a more promising path that allows him to achieve the things many expected from him when he left the University of Florida.
And if he does, perhaps he can command the respect of future teammates who may consider him for this prestigious award once again.
Note: Special thanks to Ryan Chell for his contributions to this article.
