July 26, 2004
Run, Ricky, Run Away
I've gotten used to having my gut ripped out by the Miami Dolphins each December, but Christmas seems to have arrived early this year. Nothing quite like turning on the TV on a Sunday afternoon and learning that your beloved team's star running back has retired at 27. I've endured a lot as a Dolphins fan: disasterous fourth-quarter collapses, blowout playoff losses in snowstorms, Dan Marino and Don Shula (the best player-coach combo in NFL history, and nobody's going to convince me otherwise) rode out of Dade County by some balding video salesman. But Ricky Williams quitting a week before training camp? I found myself staring at ESPN yesterday, wanting to laugh: this has got to be some kind of a joke, right?
It's strange: although his retirement means the end of the season before the first kickoff, means that Jay Fiedler and A. J. Feeley (A. J. Feeley!) are now our chief offensive weapons, means that I'll need to watch games with a flask on hand, I still can't quite begrudge Ricky his decision. He wants out, feels like football keeps him from experiencing his own life. "I was never strong enough to not play football," he told the Miami Herald, "but I'm strong enough now." That makes a weird kind of sense to me. If in four years, I find that writing is keeping me from engaging the world, has become focused on the twin demons of fame and fortune, then you'd better offer me a better reason to keep going than not wanting to bum out my fans.
Betraying teammates is a bigger issue, and on that level, Ricky's choice feels really lousy, deeply selfish. But I keep coming back to the sneaking suspicion that the record of a football team is a smaller deal than the peace of a conflicted man. Not that such a suspicion will make watching this season any less painful, but hey.
Posted by mesh at July 26, 2004 04:22 PM | TrackBackMesh, collegetower.chattablog.com is up. Viva la moi.
Posted by: John Totten at July 26, 2004 05:22 PMWell, I lost Ricky, but I gained you. That's a good trade.
Posted by: mesh at July 26, 2004 05:44 PMAs a Buccaneers fan for nearly 30 years, I feel your pain (Ricky Bell, Bo Jackson and the laundry list of Super Bowl ring wearing former Bucs), that said, how can you have ANY respect for Williams? Do you think the 665,000 in lost pay for the first 4 games of the season because of repeated pot smokintg violations had anything to do with his decision? I do. Good riddance to Williams and good luck to the 'Fins. GO BUCS!!
Posted by: b edwards at July 27, 2004 12:26 PMI'm not sure I have any respect for Ricky... just sympathy.
Posted by: mesh at July 27, 2004 01:48 PMOn another note, if you care about this sort of thing, the work of Herald reporter Dan Le Batard has been spectacular throughout this story. He is the only writer (or Dolphins coach for that matter) who seems to be able to find Ricky, taking cell calls from Hawaii and different spots across the U.S. His pieces are fair, incisive, and they seek to understand in a way that gets deeper than most "objective" reporting. If you love meaty writing, this is great stuff.
Posted by: mesh at July 27, 2004 03:10 PMYou're right, Le Batard is great. I'm an avid ESPN radio listener so I'm familiar with him. I'll check out the link later. My problem with Williams, and for that matter Warren Sapp, KeShawn Johnson and many others, is that the "poor pitiful multi-millionaire athelete" routine is very, very old. They often forget that they are paid a king's ransom to play a child's game. It seems to me that Williams is furthering that stereotype. It's really too bad for the Dolphins, they put a whole lot of stock in his word, which obviosly doesn't mean very much. Just ask some of his former Saints teammates. I hope to see the Dolphins have the last laugh. GO BUCS!!
Posted by: b edwards at July 27, 2004 05:22 PM