Wiedmer: Don't forget the tragedy that followed the last Super Bowl in Atlanta

Family members of Buckhead double murder victims Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker react as "not guilty" verdicts are read in Fulton Superior Court in the trial of Joseph Sweeting and Reginald Oakley on June 12, 2000, in Atlanta. From left are Charita Lollar, Richard Lollar's cousin; Vondie Boykin, Jacinth Baker's aunt; Thomasaina Threatt, Lollar's aunt; and Faye Lollar, Lollar's aunt.
Family members of Buckhead double murder victims Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker react as "not guilty" verdicts are read in Fulton Superior Court in the trial of Joseph Sweeting and Reginald Oakley on June 12, 2000, in Atlanta. From left are Charita Lollar, Richard Lollar's cousin; Vondie Boykin, Jacinth Baker's aunt; Thomasaina Threatt, Lollar's aunt; and Faye Lollar, Lollar's aunt.
photo Mark Wiedmer

Nineteen years.

When Super Bowl LIII between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams kicks off tonight at 6:30 inside Atlanta's sparkling, (almost) new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, that's how long it will have been since the Big Peach hosted the world's most glamorous sporting event.

Actually, it will have been 19 years and four days, but who's counting?

Moreover, other than all those St. Louis Rams fans who may still warmly remember their 23-16 victory over the Tennessee Titans that icy night, who else would want to recall what might justifiably be remembered as one of the worst Super Bowl weekends ever, especially since it ended with the still-unsolved murders of two Ohio men outside a Buckhead nightclub?

For whatever small portion of the sporting world may tie that game to Rams linebacker Mike Jones stopping Titans wide receiver Kevin Dyson 1 yard shy of the Georgia Dome end zone on the game's final play, hopefully at least a few folks remember the names of the two men who died later that night: Akron natives Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker.

Nineteen years and three days.

That's how much time has passed since Baker and Lollar lost their lives after getting into an altercation with a group of seven men and four women that included eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer Ray Lewis. According to police records, the two men got into an argument with Lewis's party as the two groups exited the Cobalt Lounge in Atlanta's Buckhead bar and restaurant district sometime between 3:30 and 4 the morning after the game.

Almost every account has one person in Lewis's party, Reginald Oakley, being hit over the head with a champagne bottle by Baker. That's when the fight exploded, and Baker and Lollar soon were left for dead two blocks from the Cobalt, both men killed by multiple stab wounds to their upper torsos.

Lewis was arrested later that day. He was initially charged with murder, not so much because authorities actually believed he'd had an active hand in the killings but because they were certain he knew who did and he had lied to the authorities.

A trial that spring resulted in acquittals on murder and assault charges for Oakley and Joseph Sweeting. Lewis accepted a plea bargain that dropped his murder and aggravated assault charges in exchange for a guilty verdict on obstruction of justice for allegedly telling those in the limo not to talk to the police. Within four years, each of the victims' families filed civil suits against Lewis that were settled out of court for undisclosed amounts. Much of Lollar's suit was to gain money for his daughter, who had not yet been born at the time of the murders.

Lewis also was fined $250,000 by the NFL. He went on to win two Super Bowl rings and earn more than $85 million in contracts, not including endorsements, as a linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens. Perhaps because the voters either ignored, had forgotten or forgiven him, Lewis was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this past summer and was in Atlanta the last few days to promote his Ray of Hope charity.

Nineteen years later, Baker, the oldest of eight children and an aspiring artist, is buried at Akron's Greenlawn Memorial Park. Lollar is buried at Glendale Cemetery in the same city. His daughter is viewed as a gifted nails artist in Atlanta, where Lollar had moved before his death. According to his brother Handsome in a Sporting News story last week, "She is him all over."

There won't be much to remind today's Super Bowl crowd of Jan. 30, 2000. The only ice anyone will see will be in their drink glasses or whatever tumbles out of the Gatorade cooler onto the back of the winning coach. The Cobalt Lounge was long ago destroyed. The decadent Buckhead nightlife scene from that time also has vanished.

The Georgia Dome also is gone, replaced by magical Mercedes-Benz with its retractable roof. And while the Rams franchise will return to the scene of its greatest glory, it will once more represent L.A. rather than its fairly brief stay in the Gateway to the West.

One story from 19 years ago that seems almost impossible to believe but was written about in an SB Nation story last week: According to longtime Atlanta radio personality Frank Ski, he went to a private party that week in Buckhead that included perhaps the two most recognizable men from the decade of the 1990s other than Michael Jordan.

Said Ski in the article: "(They) brought O.J. Simpson in, and I couldn't believe it was O.J. Simpson. You know who else blew my mind when they brought him? Freakin' Bill Clinton! That was a celebrity night - Bill Clinton! You're in the club with freakin' Bill Clinton and O.J. Simpson."

While it's hard to imagine a sitting U.S. president appearing at a private party with Simpson at that time, it somewhat frames pre-9/11 America.

There's also talk that if weather permits, and it's supposed to top 60 degrees this afternoon in Atlanta, the Mercedes-Benz roof will open. For those of us who covered that 2000 Super Bowl, we're just glad the old Dome had a roof to keep out the cold.

But at some point tonight it might be nice if someone on the CBS broadcast team at least mentioned the deaths of the 21-year-old Baker and 24-year-old Lollar, 19 years and three days ago today.

Said Lollar's brother to The Sporting News a few days ago when asked if it bothered him to be reminded of that tragedy: "No, I love it. This is what we're doing it for, you feel me? Keeping his name alive. All the reporters still coming - the spirit's still roaming."

If it is far from the best memory of that Super Bowl, those senseless murders of Baker and Lollar and the injustice that their killers are still roaming free, it might nevertheless be the best reason to reflect on the last Super Bowl weekend to call the Big Peach its home.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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