ExtremeRavens Posted 4 hours ago Posted 4 hours ago Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman tried to blend in among the 40 or so dinner guests. The recent November evening was filled with conversation, laughter and, importantly, affirmation. He also stood out. Not for his celebrity as an NFL player, but as the only male in the banquet room at Marian House, a nonprofit organization in northeast Baltimore that provides support for women who have experienced trauma ranging from domestic violence to incarceration to substance abuse to homelessness. “I want y’all to know today came from a genuine place in my heart,” Bateman said as he raised a microphone on a makeshift blue stage against a taupe wall in front of the group. “I was raised by a bunch of women, so it felt good to give you all ya’ll flowers.” They appreciated it. They could also relate. Bateman spoke about the underprivileged community he grew up in and his mother, Shonda Cromer, who endured more than a decade of domestic abuse during his childhood. He also said that he wished that she’d had someone to help navigate those frightening times. So, through the former first-round draft pick’s Without You Foundation, the idea for a day of healing and wellness for the women of Marian House was sparked. The festivities included luxurious spa treatments through Diva By Cindy and a family-style dinner from trendy Yebo Kitchen. But the message and bonds with Bateman and Cromer are what will have a lasting imprint on the soul, some of the women who spoke with The Baltimore Sun said. “It had a huge impact to see Miss Shonda, who comes from a place of brokenness like we do,” said Belle, a woman in her 50s who said she arrived at Marian House from an alcohol rehab program and psychiatric unit six years ago because her life was “out of control” after being surrounded by a family of alcoholics. Her last name was withheld to protect her identity. “To see her want to share love and spread love to make us feel special, to make us know that we are special and that we’re on a journey here, that we’re gonna be OK, it was just really nice because it was from a place of pure genuineness. “Seeing her bond with her son and how he supports her and she supports him, it was like having your own family there. You wouldn’t have known he is an NFL star.” Of course, he wasn’t always. Bateman was raised in Tifton, Georgia, a small, agricultural town three hours south of Atlanta with a population of about 16,000 and where the poverty rate during his formative years was over 40%. The physical abuse Cromer endured at the hands of Bateman’s often drunken and angry stepfather started in her youngest child’s earliest days. While his older brothers, Monjharvis and Travian, would try to escape by getting lost in video games or watching television, Rashod was witness to much of the violence, Cromer said. Still, she told only one close friend of the abuse and not even her mother for years. But when Cromer told her husband that their kids were going to be taken away by child protective services, that finally led to a split. She also filed for an order of protection against him, though she says that she lived in fear of him for years. “It still lingered for a while,” Cromer said. “I stayed scared for a while. I stayed scared until maybe five years ago and we’ve been separated 15 years. I stayed scared for a long time.” She also eventually got through it. For safety, Cromer moved in with her own mom, who, along with Cromer’s sister, among others, helped watch her children as she went back to school to get her bachelor’s degree and eventually a master’s in education and business. She leaned on her family and her faith, she said, to find the strength to forge ahead. “There’s so many women who keep quiet about some of the things that they go through like I did, because I actually kept quiet about it for a long time before somebody even knew,” Cromer said. “We didn’t have that here for somebody to reach out or help me. I had to try to figure out how to get away and do everything on my own. That’s why I tell them doing everything on my own taught me the fight is not over. You still gotta keep fighting. Even though you’re free now, you got to keep fighting to do better, you got to keep fighting not to go back, you still got to keep fighting to get a better education if you don’t have one or to get a better job. The fight’s not over until you get what you need.” She did, and so did the most athletically gifted of her children. Despite a lack of scholarship offers from major college football programs, Bateman went on to become a standout at the University of Minnesota, where he was a first-team All-Big Ten selection as a sophomore in 2019 before turning pro in 2021 and being selected 27th overall by the Ravens. A few months after being drafted, he bought his mother a house in their hometown. He has since gone on to sign two contract extensions with Baltimore, including a three-year, $36.75 million deal this past June after a breakout 2024 season in which he had career highs in yards (756) and touchdowns (nine). To the women he spent the evening with at Marian House, though, he was just Rashod. “It felt like he wasn’t a stranger,” said Annette, a woman in her 60s whose last name was also withheld to protect her identity. “I was real comfortable with him and cracking jokes with him. I asked why his brothers didn’t play football and where he was from and told him why we were there. He wasn’t really surprised. He knew what we went through and he would always say, you ladies are where my mom came from.” More importantly, though, is where they are going. Hope has been injected into the lives of the women. Ravens wide receiver Rashod Bateman and his Without You Foundation hosted a wellness day for women who have experienced trauma at the Diva Day Spa in Upperco on Nov. 10. (Surya Vaidy/Staff) Ivy, a woman in her 40s whose last name was withheld to also protect her identity, said thanks to Marian House, she was able to escape an abusive relationship along with heavy drinking. She has been sober for nearly two years and is on her way to becoming a nurse. She can see a bright future. “It’s been beautiful to me,” she said, fighting back tears. “I’m really proud of myself. They got me in the right direction. They seen things in me I didn’t see in myself. I’m a true testimonial to what the Marian House can do. “I needed a change. I’m just grateful right now.” Optimistic, too. That’s as important as anything, said Marian House president and chief executive Katie Allison. “It’s always good to know that someone came out the other side and is living a healthy and blessed life, and that’s something they can achieve as well,” she said. “Just the fact that they’re at Marian House, they’re not living with [an abuser] and they can see a path forward.” That’s particularly important around the holidays, when many of the women are not able to be around family and have to work hard to lean into the “sisterhood” they’ve developed with each other and celebrate safely and soberly, according to Marian House chief advancement officer Tobi Morris. They admittedly were at least a little starstruck, too, but grateful for the kind of care many of them say they never had before. “The ladies are still talking about [the event],” Morris said. “They all needed that extra care. They were overwhelmed. A stranger and a celebrity cared enough about their lives and their position, and they understood where they were and were interested in feeding their soul and spirit. “The truth is so many women in Baltimore and America have experienced domestic partner violence in their lives. They see she survived it, so I’m gonna survive it. I think it was mutually beneficial for both.” Rashod Bateman's Without You Foundation partnered with the Marian House, an organization that provides support for women who have experienced trauma. (Surya Vaidy/Staff) While a 2022 study published in “JAMA Network Open,” a monthly peer-reviewed open-access medical journal published by the American Medical Association and conducted by investigators at Harvard, found that former NFL players experienced childhood adversity rates similar to those of the general population, the numbers are still staggeringly high. The study of 1,755 former players found that 64.5% reported at least one adverse childhood experience, with the most common being physical abuse (24.2%), household mental illness (21.9%) and parental separation (21.2%). Bateman’s experiences had such a profound impact that his mother said she believes he only recently was able to get over it. “It was tough,” he said. “There was hitting. Other stuff comes to mind, too, but as I continue to do this, I’ll be able to open up more because I do want people to know what exactly I been through so they can understand. “But it showed me what type of love I want for myself. I think I learned what I did want and did not want.” What he wants now, even amid the touchdowns and TV cameras and millions of dollars, is to help the women of Marian House, and others, feel good about themselves. It’s an interesting dichotomy, he added, the toughness to be a football player juxtaposed against the gentleness to lift a room full of women up emotionally and spiritually. For all the physical hurt that goes with the sport he plays, though, it is his mother who endured and each has a desire to pay that forward so that others don’t have to go through what they did. “It’s easy for me to be myself and wear my heart on my sleeve because it’s something that I’ve always done,” Bateman said. “I haven’t been afraid to show my emotions and I guess be un-manly as people would call it. Being around females and raised by women, it’s OK. I wish more men were like that as well. There’s such a stigma around certain stuff in this world that people have to choose whatever makes them feel safe and is better for them at the time. “I just wanna be an advocate for all people; men, women, to be whatever you wanna be. At the end of the day, somebody is gonna say something about you, good or bad, so spread love the best way you can. The only way you can do that is be true to yourself.” Have a news tip? Contact Brian Wacker at bwacker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/brianwacker1. A woman receives a massage during a day of relaxation and restoration at the Diva Day Spa on Nov. 10. (Surya Vaidy/Staff) View the full article Quote
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