Sidelines
After the storm, the
sun shines for WilliamsTHE sun is shining in Ricky Williams. You can see it. There is something in his eyes, on his face, in his smile and his voice. Radiance? Joy? How to describe it? It is warm, and it is right and it is good. And it is contagious.
The boss tells a story of watching Ricky Williams play in a rainstorm, of how wonderful that performance was in the 1999 Hula Bowl, of how you could see Williams pouring his heart out onto that field, in a game that didn't matter, in the rain and the mud. Of how you knew, watching, that this was something special.
Texas coach Mack Brown told the same story this week at the Hula Bowl, told this year's all-stars about Williams' great effort that day, told them what a joy it is to play hard. That Ricky had told him he'd run in the rain because he just loves to play football, he just loves it. And it poured out of him that day, for all the world to see.
Brown just wanted to say it again, that this was important. That these other players could feel it, too.
"They know how much fun I had," Williams says, after the second practice of his first Pro Bowl.
And you see it then, when he talks about football. You see what Brown saw. And what Dan LeBatard saw, and Mike Ditka saw, and Doak Walker, and the soaked Hula Bowl fans who gave him a standing ovation that day. And what the boss saw, from up in the press box and through the rain.
That look on his face? It's love.
PUT ON A football helmet, with its hard shell and iron cage. It's heavy, and your head doesn't breathe, but you feel invincible in it, somehow.
And to a football player, a helmet is home.
This is how Williams conducted interviews, for a time, holding the world at a distance.
And so he hid in his helmet, in his house, in his room, in his head. And there were stories of eccentric Ricky and moody Ricky and misunderstood Ricky. He suffered from Social Anxiety Disorder.
He misunderstood it himself.
But then he was diagnosed, and he understood the problem, and he was treated and he learned. And now he's great, in love with the game again, all this happiness coming from the inside, out.
"I just realized it was much easier to deal with (people) with a smile on my face," he says.
And once again, people see the love.
This is the Ricky who won over the legendary Walker, in spite of (perhaps with the help of) "my weirdness." This is the guy who won the Heisman, and ran for all those yards in the rain.
Williams had a great year for the Miami Dolphins this fall. Tuesday, he thrust himself into the din, signing autographs. He credits maturity, growing up, understanding the way things work. But that's only part of it.
He's that kid again, the one who came home from school and went outside to play, with joy in his heart. The one who just loved to play football, and it poured out of him, for the world to see.
Ditka saw it. Doak Walker saw it. The people of Maui saw it, in the middle of a storm.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com