Angry Football Alter?

If you are a quarterback, this is one guy you don’t want to see coming after you. Ra’Shede Hageman, at 6-6 and 310 pounds, has created havoc for offensive linemen in college and looks to wreak what he claims are “three hours of hell” on NFL football fields this fall. Scheduled to be taken high in the NFL draft on May 8, Hageman, a defensive tackle, is likely a first-round pick. Of his intentions in professional football, he says his aim is to be “nasty or ruthless, having that anger and having that swag that, yeah I can do whatever I want — thats the alter ego. You don’t give a ****. You’re crazy and you don’t care.”  He also says, “When you have built-up anger, frustration in your past, there’s so many ways to use that. Luckily, I found a way to use that that was positive.”

Positive? No way. I do respect that Hageman overcame an ugly past. He was born to a man he never knew and mother who was a drug addict. He was shuffled through a dozen foster homes. Conceived illegitimately, he was adopted by an upscale white couple who weren’t married. And, no surprise to those who understand generational curses, he also has an illegitimate three-year-old child.  His “Blind Side” upbringing apparently didn’t dispel his inner rage. I’m not dissing his attempts to overcome a very bad past, and perhaps he’s doing all he knows how to do to avoid becoming as irresponsible as his biological parents; however, the reality, from my perspective of spiritual warfare, is that this young man has a long struggle ahead of him. Curses of abandonment, illegitimacy, and addiction will dog his every step on and off the field. And creating a dissociative alter-ego state to express the rage leaves room for demons to embed in his tortured soul. I pray that he finds someone in or out of football who shares Christ with him so that he can finally get free from the curses that are piled on his huge shoulders. I pray for him, but also recognize that, outside of receiving deliverance, he has a tough road ahead. So does anyone who thinks there is a “constructive” way to vent rage without expelling its demonic source.