"Among the more outspoken and socially conscious players, [DeAndre] Levy said he has had enough of the NFL.
'I’m retired. There is no reason to be playing football or supporting football right now,' he said. 'I can think of more reasons not to support it than to actually support it.'
He testified before Congress last fall about traumatic brain injuries in professional athletes and his concerns about developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
He has spoken out about easy access to prescription painkillers in the NFL, too. But now, Levy is turning his focus toward helping to give voice to survivors of sexual assault and violence, especially in communities of color.
'My role is more than just playing football,' he said. 'You realize you have a platform. You have resources. ... You inherit responsibilities because of that,' Levy said. 'I think you’ve got to use your voice and speak for people and try to help put the spotlight on people who won’t be heard because they're not an athlete.'
People like his wife, Desiré Vincent Levy, whom he met at college and married in 2016. She was sexually abused as a child, and for more than a decade she silently carried the trauma and guilt associated with that abuse.
'I didn’t tell anyone until I was in college because I was just really afraid to say anything,' Vincent Levy said. She was 21 when she finally called her mom from her dorm room told her what had happened years earlier. 'She didn’t really know what to say. I think she was just in shock.
'I felt exposed,' she said. 'I think only recently I can say I feel better, and that’s mostly because in my immediate circle and sphere of my life, I feel very supported now.'
Together, the Levys commissioned artists Sydney G. James and Askew One to paint a mural in Eastern Market at Rivard and Erskine streets in 2017 to encourage survivors of sexual assault and harassment to speak out, and to urge others to listen and to take their stories seriously."
