Williams followed his heart, like he should
Dolphins RB doesn't need to follow dictums of others
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Steve Wilstein AP columnist • E-mail |
Over a five-day span, Ricky Williams flew from the Bahamas to Miami to Hawaii to Tokyo to Los Angeles.
That’s a lot of bad meals and a lot of time to think.
A pounding runner on the field, Williams is bolting into the blue sky, feeling freer than ever at 36,000 feet and wherever he lands. He’s not sure of his next stop and doesn’t really care.
Talking to his agent shortly after arriving in California on Monday, the peripatetic and erstwhile running back for the Miami Dolphins mentioned he might visit Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
On the way, he might want to pause at Walden Pond and brush up on the writings of another famous dropout from the conventions of society, Henry David Thoreau. People thought he was an odd duck, too.
A young man leaving behind wealth and adulation to search for truth and worldly experience is a story as old as the Buddha.
Now it’s the story of Ricky Williams, a 27-year-old former Heisman Trophy winner whose journey to the East or West or wherever his heart and whimsy take him has left the Dolphins feeling puzzled and betrayed. He may not choose the path of an ascetic, but in the money-grubbing world of sports he’s surely taking the road less traveled.
“Why do people have to be judgmental about this,” Williams told Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard by cellphone from Asia late Sunday night. “I’m going in search of the truth. Everything I’m doing in my life is about finding the truth. Football isn’t part of the truth for me anymore.”
Many fans couldn’t understand why Williams abandoned the team a week before training camp or why he gave up more than $5 million a year — $3.6 million in salary this season plus $1.5 million in incentives — at the peak of his career. He already has enough money, he said, and making millions more wasn’t a priority for him.
“I’ve been poor before,” he said.
Narrow-minded folks, like Miami guard Seth McKinney, call him selfish. Cynics suggest he flipped or smoked too much pot. But none of those people really knows Williams or understands him.
Williams doesn’t owe the Dolphins or their fans anything. In fact, they owe him thanks for leaving when he felt he no longer had his heart in the game. He could have stayed around, collected his paychecks, and given an indifferent effort. That wasn’t his style.
Sure the Dolphins would have liked to have known sooner, to find someone to replace him, but Williams wasn’t certain of his decision until last week.
“Anyone who thinks he’s selfish, they should see his foundation and see him around kids in Austin,” Mack Brown, his former coach at Texas, said. “Selfish is not a word I’ve ever thought about with Ricky Williams.”
Brown, who speaks frequently with Williams, said early retirement has been on his mind for a long time. He’s seen another former Texas running back, Earl Campbell, struggle with bad knees and a bad back after 13 years of pounding in the NFL. Williams, a player much like Campbell, didn’t want that for himself.
“For people who do not know Ricky well, he is very, very bright,” Brown said. “He is a good person and a very deep thinker. He doesn’t make snap decisions.”
Williams is hardly the first running back to bow out early. Jim Brown, Barry Sanders and Robert Smith all left the game young.
Smith, the NFC’s top rusher in 2000, was 28 when he walked away from the Minnesota Vikings. He resurfaced this summer to talk about his autobiography, “The Rest of the Iceberg: An Insider’s View on the World of Sport and Celebrity.”
“There’s no way to escape it,” Smith said. “Just the level of attention you get really can be embarrassing. And it’s frustrating, too, when you realize there are so many other people who have more important jobs.
“Our society needs to stop focusing on athletes as role models or as being heroes.”
It’s a view heartily endorsed by Williams.
Leigh Steinberg, Williams’ agent in Newport Beach, Calif., said Williams called him during the offseason and said with some urgency that he had to talk with him.
“I thought, ’Oh my gosh, he got injured,”’ Steinberg said. “No, he wanted to talk about ’The Da Vinci Code,’ the different philosophies in it, and whether or not the challenge of Christianity and the basic theories were correct.
“He’s someone who talks about philosophy and spirituality and the meaning of life, what it means to be a person, and friendship.”
Williams’ discomfort with celebrity was only one factor in his flight from football. He wanted the freedom to pursue his love of photography, to travel for pleasure and insight rather than just for work, to complete his degree at Texas and perhaps teach elementary school.
He wanted a life beyond the field, a chance to explore the world as he did the Australian outback last winter, meeting and understanding people of different cultures.
“He is an American original,” Steinberg said. “He is an example of the bright, gifted athlete who has turned away from this massive contract, endorsements, every conventional thing that society has to offer, to explore an alternative life.”
That’s a choice to be celebrated, not mocked or criticized.
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