BLAZIN' A TRAIL

By: B

There are two separate but parallel stories floating around the pop culture world. One is current and one from the past, one real and the other fiction. Each involves a young man with an extraordinary skill that others can only dream of. Those who know of his ability are in constant awe and admiration, but this person doesn’t seem to care. Though he knows this God-given talent is rare, he’d rather someone else possess it. He has other interests in life and doesn’t need the burden of realizing his full potential. Most of his life is spent listening to others lecture him about using this skill to the best of his ability.

One person is the young genius Will, played by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. The other is recently retired football player Ricky Williams.

Good Will Hunting tells the story of Will, an abused 20-year-old orphan with superhuman smarts. He cares not to use his genius to teach or work for a big corporation; he simply wants to live a simple life with his lifelong pals in the ratty neighborhood he calls home. He is constantly in trouble with the law but doesn’t seem to care.

Will is frequently told by everyone around him to do something better with his life. Get a job, get out of this shitty town, go make a difference. Do this because you have it in you, because you’ve got a one-way ticket out of this hellhole. Do it for me, do it for you, do it for her, blah blah blah. After enough of these lectures, Will turns his life around and decides to play it straight. We see him take the road more traveled, driving off into the sunset with a new perspective on life. This is fantasy.

Ricky Williams has been one of the elite running backs in the game since his rookie year in 1999. Before that, he was a record-setting back for the University of Texas. In short, football has been his life, his whole life. He was undoubtedly the most powerful running back in every league he played in, the result of countless hours spent in the weight room. His conditioning and training were second to none. All for a sport he didn’t even enjoy playing.

See, Williams actually listened to those same type of folks portrayed in Good Will Hunting, the ones who told him he had to play football just because his talent was so rare. Enjoyment or not, this was his calling. You don’t take this combination of speed, strength and awareness and throw it away. There is a thing called duty, and Williams was told to fulfill his by playing football.

Three weeks ago, just before the beginning of training camp and just after failing his third drug test, Williams walked away from the game that made him rich. At 27 years old, Williams claimed to have had enough, that he had better things to do. Williams is taking the road less traveled, leaving behind him fame and more riches and a possible Super Bowl ring, all in the name of internal happiness. Word is he just wants to be free to travel the world and smoke as much pot as he wants. This is reality.

It seems people in the real world, however, are having trouble coming to grips with this choice. Folks are up in arms that this guy has turned his back on one of the most glamorous professions in the world. But he hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet. He’s letting his teammates down. He’s lazy. He’ll regret it. He’ll be back.

Don’t expect Williams to care about any of these things. The fact is, none of these athletes really care how their exit looks. Some leave too early, some stick around too long. They don’t worry about fulfilling a commitment because in their business, players get unjustly cut all the time. They don’t worry about fairy tale endings, because they mean nothing.

Michael Jordan decided to return to basketball despite a seemingly perfect finish to a career. Did his disappointing two years for the Wizards tarnish his legacy? Maybe in the fiction section, but reality says athletes can do whatever they want. Babe Ruth ended his career with the Braves, Hank Aaron with the Brewers, Wade Boggs with the Devil Rays. They didn’t care one way or the other how it was going to make them look, so why should Williams?

What we have in Ricky Williams is an athlete who doesn’t like football as much as the rest of us. Big deal. We can go ahead and hate Ricky Williams– and Barry Sanders and Jim Brown, and every other athlete who retired young – for leaving the game too early, or we can get on with our lives and give credit to a person who is lucky enough to retire rich and spend the rest of his life doing whatever he wants. If he decides to return to football, that's great. If, however, he spends his life smoking every sort of exotic weed out of all the biggest bongs in the world, so be it.

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