Alabama Coach's Bombshell Ray Lewis Revelation Happened After A Simple Question

Alabama basketball coach Nate Oats did not just drop the name Ray Lewis out of the air Tuesday before his team's game at Vanderbilt.

He was asked a simple question by Alabama basketball play-by-play veteran Chris Stewart on the Crimson Tide Sports Network.

Chris Stewart, the Voice of Alabama football and basketball (left), asked coach Nate Oats (not pictured) if he had sought advice as to how to handle a murder charge vs. one of his players. (Photo Courtesy of Crimson Tide Sports Network).

Stewart wanted to know if Oats had asked others for advice on how to handle a nightmare coaching challenge. Alabama basketball player Darius Miles and Michael Lynn Davis were charged with capital murder in the shooting death of Jamea Jonea Harris, 23, of Birmingham on the strip at the University of Alabama early Sunday morning. Miles was immediately kicked off the team and removed from campus.

Alabama Coach Nate Oats Asked For Advice

"Incredible circumstances, none of which is your doing, but you've got to help your players deal with this," Stewart said on WNSP Radio in Mobile, Alabama, Wednesday morning of his conversation with Oats while taping the Alabama pregame show. Alabama beat Vanderbilt, 78-66.

"And so he ran through a fairly short list of the people that he talked to," Stewart said.

Oats listed Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, Alabama sports psychologist Bhrett McCabe and former Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl champion linebacker Ray Lewis. In 2018, Lewis was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

RAY LEWIS - THE MAN ATHLETES SHOULD CALL WHEN FACING MURDER CHARGES

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis looks at the clock during Super Bowl XLVII at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on February 3, 2013, in which the Ravens beat San Francisco. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Lewis also escaped double murder charges in 2000 by testifying against two friends who were also charged with the double murder. In return, Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice and got a year of probation.

"The Ray Lewis comment surprised me, because I didn't know he had a relationship there," Stewart said.

Ray Lewis' Daughter Diaymon Is An Alabama Graduate

Oats knew Lewis because he knew Lewis' daughter Diaymon Lewis, who graduated from Alabama in 2020.

"But it turns out Ray Lewis had a child who went to the University of Alabama," Stewart said. "So at some point, they had made a connection. So, that aspect of it surprised me."

Stewart did not have a chance to follow up on the Lewis connection as the pregame show was nearing its end.

"Nate's trying to get ready for the game," Stewart said. "I finished the interview. So, there was not a lot of time to talk about the context."

Reporters who heard the pregame show or of it then followed up with Oats after the game for more information on Lewis as an adviser.

"Nate Oats is a really transparent guy," Stewart said. "So, the fact that he had a conversation with him and that he would share it didn't surprise me at all."