Ravens' Jameel McClain uses injury as motivational fuel

Robert Klemko, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

REISTERSTOWN, Md. -- The Baltimore Ravens received good news that went unnoticed during what has been a roller-coaster offseason after a Super Bowl championship.

Doctors told Jameel McClain, the inside linebacker expected to take the place of retired Ray Lewis, that the spinal cord contusion that ended his 2012 season is "resolving itself," he says, and is unlikely to require surgery. He expects to be ready to play Week 1.

McClain's recovery has been lost in the headlines of recent Ravens departures, including veteran wide receiver Anquan Boldin, who was traded, and free agent linebackers Paul Kruger and Dannell Ellerbe and safety Ed Reed. With the retirements of center Matt Birk and Lewis, Baltimore will not be among the teams favored to make a Super Bowl run — even with the recent signing of defensive end Elvis Dumervil.

Being an underdog is a familiar position for McClain, who spent seven months in a Pennsylvania homeless shelter as a child, slept on couches of friends and relatives and went undrafted out of Syracuse in 2008 but played in every Ravens game for four-plus seasons before one December tackle nearly derailed his career.

"Hungry is all I know," McClain said while he waited at home for news from doctors. "After how I grew up, college, the pros — it was like a vacation. But I treated it like a business trip. And I'm going to get back out there, no matter what."

McClain said he remembers everything about Dec.9, the day his season ended in Washington. He was about to tackle Redskins running back Alfred Morris "and I guess I just had my head in a wrong position and then, boom! My body went numb for a little bit. I could feel my hands. I could feel my legs. And then the sensation went away," he said.

"I was, like, 'I want to go back out there. Let's go. We need this game.' And it just didn't happen."

Instead, all the gains McClain had made in his third season as a starter were put on hold, including growth as a team leader.

The Ravens went on to win the Super Bowl, with Lewis — who had been out since October with a triceps tear — returning for the playoffs and McClain on the sideline and unsure if he would require spinal surgery. The title was "bittersweet," McClain said.

"It's the game I worked my whole life to get to," he said. "It's the only reason I play this game — to get a ring and to get respect. I've got a ring, I don't have the respect yet, so I'm still working toward that. I have a ring, but am I a Super Bowl champion? I don't know."

He splits his offseason between the Baltimore area and Philadelphia, where he grew up with three siblings and, in his early childhood, a single mother who struggled to support them. He recalls coming home to find his home in North Philadelphia boarded up with his belongings locked inside. He said he spent seven months with his siblings at the Salvation Army shelter in Norristown, Pa., before his mother's sister and her husband discovered their plight and began taking the children into their home in Philadelphia, one by one.

"We were all looking for the whole family," said Gregory Smith, McClain's uncle, who works for the Social Security Administration. "She was embarrassed and didn't want anybody to know where they were living.

"We just said, 'Let us help you.'"

Gregory and Gloria Smith took in Jameel's older twin brothers and older sister, but Jameel stayed with his mother until he was 13. Today, he is close with neither his mother nor his father, Ralph McClain, who was in and out of jail for "most of my life," McClain said. Gloria Smith said the tough childhood helped him deal with the spinal injury.

"He already knows that nothing is going to come easy, so this is just another thing that he's going to fight for," she said.

McClain didn't always take hardships in stride. As a child, he fought — in the streets and as an amateur boxer. And he ate. He blew up to 265 pounds after earning a scholarship at Syracuse, moved from linebacker to defensive line and went undrafted. He was seen as undisciplined, but the weight issue went deeper than that.

"At one time, we weren't eating three square meals a day," he said. "Then having all that right there and it being paid for? I wasn't missing no meals."

The Ravens asked McClain to play inside linebacker, and he dropped weight quickly and played last season at 240 pounds. He says he started a healthy diet about two years ago at the urging of Reed, whose autographed jersey hangs in McClain's basement. Now Reed is gone.

"Ed Reed's been my mentor throughout this whole journey," McClain said.

McClain makes regular appearances for charities, including speeches on behalf of the Salvation Army to children who face the challenges he did. He tells them about the hunger of his childhood.

"It's a horrible feeling to want and can't have," he said. "But it's not like you want the world. You just want the bare essentials, enough to make your stomach stop rumbling. The only way to avoid the hunger was to go to sleep, crying. There was a bad stint, but it got better. Everything gets better with time."