Ricky Williams was ahead of his time
FORT WORTH — It is a coincidence, but maybe not, that Ricky Williams lives in a place called Grass Valley.
That sounds like it’s preordained.
The former University of Texas and longtime NFL running back looks and sounds like he is in a good place with his family in California. He’s 46, and doing his thing.
He retired from one of the most interesting NFL careers, ever, in 2011. It is not lost on him that unintentionally he became a pioneer in two specific areas that he helped to change not only in the NFL, but the American sports culture. Marijuana. Mental health. “I take pride in that I got to be a guy who knocked down a big wall,” Williams said this week in an interview via Zoom.
Ricky was a fierce advocate for normalizing marijuana long before that process began, when it was illegal nearly everywhere. He was suspended multiple times by the NFL for violating the league’s policy on marijuana use.
Ricky was an advocate to address mental health long before it became OK to say, “I am not OK.” He “retired” from the NFL in 2004, which effectively amounted to an extended break before he returned.
He has launched new “hemp-derived Delta 8, Delta 9 and other alternative cannabinoids” at a website called, appropriately, www.gethighsman.com. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1998, and he is the last player from UT to win that award (yes, Vince Young should have won it).
He spoke to the Star-Telegram about marijuana use in the United States, and how people will remember him.
STAR-TELEGRAM: When you played you were such an outlier, but now not so much. Were you ahead of your time?
RICKY WILLIAMS: Yeah; it occurred to me when I was young I was outlier but it was a rare situation where my athletic ability was so supreme that it allowed me to get away with things that most guys would have been weeded out for. ‘Sensitive’ guys in college and in high school get weeded out really quickly but I had this toughness at the same time athletic ability, so I slipped through the cracks.
When it finally caught up with me I was in the NFL. My experience was I just wanted to feel better. I was just happy that I found something that could potentially make me feel better; once I started to feel better, for me it was having my story coming full circle and I have something meaningful to share with people.
S-T: What do you think this country’s relationship with marijuana will be like in 10 years?
RW: Two things. Part of it will be the same way alcohol is marketed. Team sponsors, billboards, all of it. The second part is we’re going to see it marketed the way pharmaceuticals are marketed.
The technology is moving so fast and the big thing now in the cannabis space will be drinks. It’s not going to be so much related to smoking but it will be available in drinks, and infused into food. That’s where it’s headed.
S-T: Have you made peace with your career, and some of the labels that were put on you were as a result of possibly being ahead of your time?
RW: Even if I broke all the rushing records that existed in the record books I have realized with fame, and especially sports fame, it’s generational. Two generations have passed since I played. Kids are like, ‘Oh, yeah my dad used to talk about him but I have no idea who he is.’
I see that going around talking to young people they don’t know me, or saw me play. They might have heard about me as the guy who retired rather than quitting smoking and are inspired by it. I have seen what I have been able to do through football and it’s given me a platform that transcends what I did on the field.
S-T: Not to toot your own horn, but were you too smart for the NFL?
RW: That’s funny; I think I was smart to be appreciated by the NFL, which is slightly different. I was smarter than I needed to be to be a good football player. Mainly what was expected of me was to be a good football player and anything beyond that had the potential to be a distraction.
S-T: Do you still like football?
RW: I tell people I am a football connoisseur. If a game is on I can’t help but watch every time. The timing. The footwork. Do I go out of my way to watch a game? No, because I become so absorbed in it, even though I haven’t played in over a decade. I still don’t feel like I have an offseason because it’s so ingrained in my mind and it runs through my mind three or four times a day. It will always be a part of me.
S-T: How do you want to be known, or even remembered?
RW: The thread I hope that goes through my whole story is toughness. A lot of times we pretend that mental toughness and physical toughness are the same. They’re not. Everything I’ve learned about being a running back, and physical toughness, and started to deal with mental issues, I applied to mental toughness.
I stand with my convictions; to take a year off from playing and get to know myself better. That took a lot of toughness to deal with, all of that push back.