Ricky Williams
Ricky Williams
Errick Lynne "Ricky" Williams Jr.is a retired American football running back who played twelve seasons in the National Football Leagueand one season in the Canadian Football League. He played college football for the University of Texas, where he was a two-time All-American and won the Heisman Trophy. Williams was drafted by the New Orleans Saints fifth overall in the 1999 NFL Draft and spent three seasons with the team before he was traded to the Miami Dolphins in 2002. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFootball Player
Date of Birth21 May 1977
CitySan Diego, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was.
After I won the Heisman Trophy, it just was OK, I’m supposed to go to the NFL and so that’s what I did. I didn’t really have any expectations and I didn’t really understand how things worked.
Depending on their fondest memory of you, most people hold on so tightly to their fondest memory they don’t usually let you be anything greater than that. And that’s one of the things I think I allowed myself to be a victim of earlier in my career. What I learned as I got older is I decide. I decide what it’s like for me, not other people. You can be whatever you’d like to be. You just have to choose it.
Nine in the box... that's a football term.
I've let a lot of things go, and obviously football is one of them. I think the hardest thing to let go is your self-image. That's what I'm working on now.
I really do love football.
The NFL has been an amazing page in this chapter of my life. I pray that all successive adventures offer me the same potential for growth, success and most importantly fun.
I don't believe in regret.
I think I have a tendency to look at things subjectively rather than objectively when I reflect on my experience.
Coaches want so many things from a back. It's hard to find someone like Edgerrin James or Marshall Faulk, someone you can trust to block, catch and be physical. But I can do all those things.
I'm halfway intelligent. I'll figure something out.
It's funny, people say 'Welcome back' when I haven't gone anywhere.
My helmet is off; I'm not afraid anymore.
Football is my job, not my life, but it's a job I'm going to give my all for as long as I'm in it.