Run Ricky Run

Is it Ricky Williams or the rest of us who are screwed up?

That one of the fundamental questions of Sean Pamphilon and Royce Toni's outstanding five-year look at the NFL running back who walked away from the sport in August 2004.

Everyone was quick to judge Williams for hanging up his cleats, saying he chose smoking marijuana over playing football, but ask yourself this: if you're not happy playing football – and not happy with who you are — should you really keep playing just because everyone else thinks that what you should do?

Just because few people could fathom walking away from a lucrative NFL contract, the spotlight, the fame, and everything else they associate with being a professional athlete doesn't mean Williams was wrong in his decision. It was his decision, for his reasons, and it seems to have helped him grow as a person, which trumps anything he could have achieved on the football field.

We look at being a professional athlete as one of the ultimate achievements when we're kids, one of those dream jobs that we'd agree to accept in an instant if given the opportunity.

As adults, though we're aware of the daily grind, we don't associate it with professional athletes, because we see the glamorous side — the money, the people wearing your jersey, the fulfillment of childhood dreams we never got to live out.

We can't wrap our heads around how playing football wasn't fulfilling for Williams; how he would choose to live in a tent in Australia or a one bedroom house in Nevada City, California cut off from just about everyone.

Most of us believe we would happily suffer hating our jobs and questioning ourselves for just a portion of the money Williams was earning in the NFL when he walked away from it all, but unless you've been in that position, there is no way to say that with certainty.

And which is truly better — slogging through an unhappy life to make money and do what most people think you should do or being willing to step away from it all to find the things that will really make you happy as a person?

Ricky Williams' story is about maturation to me, and is one that I find extremely inspiring.

I think we forget at times that in addition to being athletes and millionaires living out our dreams, these are kids who have to grow up and experience life under the microscope.

Williams was 27-years-old when he walked away from football in 2004.

I can tell you right now that I wasn't sure about much in my life at that age; I didn't know who I was completely, had yet to fully discover my passion for writing, or determined what I needed to be happy in life.

I had struggled with some things up until that point — I was bad with money, drank too much, made some stupid choices.

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to go through those things and the process of trying to figure myself out with television cameras in my face, legions of people criticizing my performance at work publicly, and the wear and tear of playing professional football all resting upon me.

I'd have bolted for Australia too.

What's frustrating to me now — both as just a regular, everyday human and as a journalist — is that while countless hours were spent covering his quest to find himself and what everyone labels as the troubled time in his life, the cameras are seldom rolling now to cover where Ricky is today, except when he's carrying the ball for the Baltimore Ravens.

His hiatus from football and odyssey to find himself became an "imagine what he could have done in those years" talking point when he came back to rush for over 1,000 yards in 2009. His resurgent performance on the field set the previous five years of scorn, ridicule, and questioning aside.

When he wanted to find himself, he was a pariah. Once he put the pads back on and starting running the ball again successfully, he was the prodigal son returning to the field.

To me the more important part of the story is Williams becoming comfortable in his own skin; discovering who he is, who he wants to be, and moving forward in those things, because when he walks away from the field for good, he's still a father, a husband, a son, and a member of society.

A lot of people probably saw his return to football as Williams coming to his senses, but to me, he had his wits about him the whole time.

Walking away in 2004 was what he needed, and just because most people couldn't understand it didn't make it wrong.

I don't think Williams was crazy — literally or figuratively — for leaving football.

We're all looking to find complete happiness or get as close to it as we can; that doesn't change just because you play in the NFL.

Add this one to the must-see list.