Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to another edition of Club Shasha. I am
Speaker 1: your host, also the proprietor of Club Shasha, and the
Speaker 1: guy that's stopping by for a drinking conversation today is
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety eight Hisman Trophy winner. He also led
Speaker 1: the NFL and rushing. He was once the MC double
Speaker 1: a rushing leader. He broke Tony door set record since
Speaker 1: been broken. He's a holistic healer, yoga instructor, and a
Speaker 1: trained astrologer none other than Ricky Williams. All my life,
Speaker 1: grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle back price, one slice
Speaker 1: got the dice swathing all my life. I've been grinding
Speaker 1: all my life, all my life, and running all my life, sacrifice,
Speaker 1: hustle back prices, one slice got the bron dice to
Speaker 1: swathing all my life. I've been rinding all my life. Ricky,
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? Bro? I'm doing great. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So when when people says, okay, you want a Higsman
Speaker 1: Trophy winner, you with the first round draft pick, you
Speaker 1: led the NFL and Russian and then they get to
Speaker 1: astrologer yoga, we go through your mind when you hear
Speaker 1: all that, well, I get it. I mean I get it.
Speaker 1: It's hard for people to understand and to be like,
Speaker 1: how do you go from doing something that's you know,
Speaker 1: so exactly just something that's so you know, woo woo,
Speaker 1: and uh. It was weird. I kind of had to
Speaker 1: wake up to it myself. And it was soon after
Speaker 1: I led the NFL and Rushie I started to read
Speaker 1: more and look at certain things and realize this stuff
Speaker 1: kind of interests me, and it interested me so much
Speaker 1: I ended up retiring from the NFL and spending a
Speaker 1: year really studying and learning about these things. And then
Speaker 1: when I came back to the NFL, it was really
Speaker 1: strange because I then had these two parts of myself
Speaker 1: and I was trying to find a way to make
Speaker 1: them come together. And it took a long time. You know.
Speaker 1: At first it was just me sitting in my locker
Speaker 1: reading books. And then slowly I I'm more comfortable, and
Speaker 1: I started talking to some of my closest teammates, asking
Speaker 1: them for their birth information, to start looking at their charts,
Speaker 1: and then I just slowly became more comfortable allowing these
Speaker 1: two parts of myself to come together. And it's been weird,
Speaker 1: and it's been strange, and I finally feel like I've
Speaker 1: come to the place where I'm coming out of this
Speaker 1: is this is who I am. You talk you talk
Speaker 1: about that. You have a podcast Quick Curious Questions with
Speaker 1: Ricky Williams. Will you talk about astrology? And your guests
Speaker 1: they tell you their birthday. You delve into the astrology.
Speaker 1: So clearly you believe in that, the signs aligning and
Speaker 1: the astrological you you you believe in that. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's you can say it's a belief, but but most
Speaker 1: people don't really understand what astrology gets to me. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just a legs. It's just a way that
Speaker 1: it's just a way another way to look at you know,
Speaker 1: and let me ask let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1: So let me so let's just say, for the sake
Speaker 1: of argument, I askt the logical sign, I'm a cancer,
Speaker 1: and people say, well, you're a water a sign. So
Speaker 1: that's a crap. So you're hard exterior, you're solf inside,
Speaker 1: your tender, you're caring, you're loving, and then people starting
Speaker 1: to believe that, can you start to believe something that
Speaker 1: maybe you're not. Of course, of course it's called it's
Speaker 1: called the placebo effense but let me let me give
Speaker 1: you let me give you an example. Okay, great example
Speaker 1: you give being a cancer. So I'm guessing some of
Speaker 1: those things probably might be true. But astrologically, like if
Speaker 1: I was talking to a cancer, you know, if I
Speaker 1: was talking to you and you decided with me and
Speaker 1: he gave me money, need to look at your chary,
Speaker 1: I would say, cancer is really about what you're here
Speaker 1: to do, what you're here to learn. And so it's
Speaker 1: the kind of way I look at astrology. It's it's
Speaker 1: spiritual in this way. And if someone talks to you
Speaker 1: and they say, you know you're you're here to learn,
Speaker 1: you know, cancer is about learning how to keep your
Speaker 1: heart open, right to go through stuff, right to go
Speaker 1: through stuff, to get beat up, but still learn keep
Speaker 1: your heart open. And so part of this process means
Speaker 1: you got to learn to know your own heart, okay.
Speaker 1: And so part of that is if Emily comes in
Speaker 1: when I think about cancer, because the only way you
Speaker 1: can truly know your own heart is if you have
Speaker 1: people around you where you feel comfortable, is safe enough
Speaker 1: that you can share your heart right and by sharing
Speaker 1: with these people, you get a better sense of who
Speaker 1: you are. And it's easier to keep your heart open.
Speaker 1: Right to me, that's the core basis of cancer. And
Speaker 1: if I'm talking to with cancer and they're like, that
Speaker 1: makes sense to me, right, then it's useful. If they say,
Speaker 1: you know, that doesn't make sense for me, then it's
Speaker 1: not useful to them. And that's the way. That's the way.
Speaker 1: It's just the lens to look at them through. So
Speaker 1: you're trying to get them to look within themselves, find
Speaker 1: something that you're saying that's going to be useful, that's
Speaker 1: going to be beneficial, that they can go back out
Speaker 1: and use it to the best of their ability. That's
Speaker 1: exactly That's exactly what I'm doing. And so what I'm
Speaker 1: doing with with the podcast is is I'm bringing people
Speaker 1: on and I look at their child. I look because
Speaker 1: and everyone's chart there's something you're singer, you meet that
Speaker 1: kind of jumps out at and so I try to
Speaker 1: ask them questions, not necessarily telling them what I'm looking at,
Speaker 1: but just asking questions to see if I can get
Speaker 1: to that thing that I see. And very often sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a question. I don't even think we're going to
Speaker 1: get there, but I ask the question, and the words
Speaker 1: that come out of their mouth are almost verbatim as
Speaker 1: the words you would read in an astrology book about
Speaker 1: this person's side. And so I call it people speak
Speaker 1: their chart, you know. And so astrologiess helps us tune
Speaker 1: into into it's not mythology, but it is kind of
Speaker 1: like mythology, right, like for us, Right, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a mythology about a warrior. Right, how to warriors? How
Speaker 1: we how we right? Challenges come, We don't back down,
Speaker 1: we come up and we meet the challenges. Right. Also
Speaker 1: part of the warriors, especially if you can get military
Speaker 1: and football, is we got to come together as a
Speaker 1: team to accomplish this one goal. And we have to
Speaker 1: be tough and trust each other. Right. And so this
Speaker 1: is a myth. Right as we put on the football,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read this side of these kids that
Speaker 1: we're going to be athletes. We entered into that myth, okay.
Speaker 1: And so astrology can give you a sense of how
Speaker 1: to interact with the myths that you've entered into and
Speaker 1: how to be more conscious in them. So an example
Speaker 1: is like the warrior myth, the old warrior myth is
Speaker 1: that we can't be sensitive, right, we have to hide
Speaker 1: our feelings we have to be tough, right, but as
Speaker 1: warriors as embodied this, if we realize it actually doesn't work,
Speaker 1: that we can be a sensitive warrior, right, that's a
Speaker 1: new that's a new myth. And astrology can help tune
Speaker 1: you into the myths that you're unconsciously living out, so
Speaker 1: you can be more conscious and living mind and more
Speaker 1: and more empowering ways. So in order to for a
Speaker 1: person to get the true meaning, the true understanding of
Speaker 1: the heads or her astrological reading, they have to come
Speaker 1: in with an open mind. They can't because they can't.
Speaker 1: But I've met its bud. Yeah, I'm just doing it
Speaker 1: just because. But you have to be open minding. You
Speaker 1: have to be will having a willingness well to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, I think, to get the most out of it. Yes,
Speaker 1: to get the most out of anything, you have to
Speaker 1: have an open mind. Right. I'm telling you people that
Speaker 1: come in that are skeptical and the way that I
Speaker 1: explained it to them and approach it, every single person
Speaker 1: they walk, they walk and their minds are expanding. They
Speaker 1: have a different way to look at it. And so
Speaker 1: to me, whether someone's a skeptic or not, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter to me. It's an interesting conversation that provides a
Speaker 1: different way to look at that can be useful, very
Speaker 1: useful at least it has been in my life, Okay.
Speaker 1: And and also the yoga side. So how do they merge,
Speaker 1: because because obviously yoga is very peaceful, you're trying to
Speaker 1: get you're trying to get in tune and instep with yourself,
Speaker 1: your body. You're one. Yeah, so they're they're very much related.
Speaker 1: And the thing about astrology is is when people say astrology,
Speaker 1: most people are saying something completely They're different. They might
Speaker 1: be related because they're related to the stars, but truly
Speaker 1: astrology is like agag and so depending on who the
Speaker 1: person is and how they're looking at it, they're going
Speaker 1: to use astrology different. I'm a spiritual person, so I'm
Speaker 1: always looking for how to connect the dots in life.
Speaker 1: Right to me, where I find peace and yoga is
Speaker 1: to how to understand the big picture. And so growing up,
Speaker 1: I grew up Christian, and I'm telling you, as a kid,
Speaker 1: my favorite thing to do in the world was Sunday school.
Speaker 1: I love to hear the stories about Jesus because again,
Speaker 1: religion gives us the way to try to understand the world.
Speaker 1: But you know, I got sixteen and then they said
Speaker 1: you gotta wait Mayor to have sex, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I need to find me a different religion, and so
Speaker 1: so I let it go. But but you know, when
Speaker 1: I found yoga, it was like coming home, you know,
Speaker 1: a more expansive way to understand how everything works. And
Speaker 1: then I found astrology from my yoga teacher and I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, this is something I can actually work with.
Speaker 1: This gives me a way to look at the world
Speaker 1: where I can see how things are connected, how things
Speaker 1: make sense. You are a big cannabis advocate, So which
Speaker 1: came first. Was it cannabis helping you get to where
Speaker 1: you are now? Or was it that you started doing
Speaker 1: this and like to reach that interfel to where you
Speaker 1: found calm, where you found a peace. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the ultimate goal for me was to find some
Speaker 1: kind of peace, and I've found the peace and cannabis,
Speaker 1: and in that piece, my mind started to expand and
Speaker 1: I started to look at the at the bigger picture.
Speaker 1: And so my relationship with cannas over the years is
Speaker 1: definitely involved the same way the relationship with our country's
Speaker 1: relationship with cannabis has evolved, and I just think I
Speaker 1: just was fortunate enough to be kind of on the
Speaker 1: leading edge of that. And so as as an advocate,
Speaker 1: it's from my own personal experience, as I've used cannabis
Speaker 1: in ways that have enhanced my life, and I've also
Speaker 1: used in ways that have gotten me in trouble. And
Speaker 1: so I've learned from those experiences and I think I
Speaker 1: have something meaningful to say about it. I think the
Speaker 1: thing is, Ricky, is that you have a very unique perspective.
Speaker 1: Is that it seems to me. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: some people that smoke it, they just smoked, just a smoke.
Speaker 1: But if you strike me as a guy that not
Speaker 1: only did you smoke, but you try to learn the
Speaker 1: origin and the different strands and and and what effect
Speaker 1: that it has on nobody. Okay, which one is gonna
Speaker 1: give me to that place that while I'm calm and
Speaker 1: that I can do something meaningful in society that can
Speaker 1: help my brethren and that can help my fellow man.
Speaker 1: And then so what was that process? Like, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great question. So it really started with this big question.
Speaker 1: You know, I found myself, you know, I felt another
Speaker 1: drug test and instead of like going through all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I called up doctor Brown caught up that it fell
Speaker 1: and said, don't worry about me, don't worry about me.
Speaker 1: I'm good, you know. And so I started traveling around
Speaker 1: the world a little bit, and and I have this
Speaker 1: question of Okay, I kind of just gave up everything
Speaker 1: that I've ever worked for, you know, and it's connected
Speaker 1: to this plant. So is it true with everyone's saying
Speaker 1: that I'm just to pot it and a loser and
Speaker 1: I'm throwing everything away or is there something else going
Speaker 1: on here? And you know, me being a losing like
Speaker 1: that didn't feel good. And so I went the other direction,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm going to learn as much as
Speaker 1: I can about what's gonna be going on here. So
Speaker 1: you travel around the world, so obviously you probably tried
Speaker 1: cannabis in eat different country, a local. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, you are in true cancer the sensitivity
Speaker 1: because the things that I'm about to say, you're already
Speaker 1: You're already asking the question. So I said, that's that
Speaker 1: was the crazy part of it. Is I started traveling
Speaker 1: around the world and going places where nobody had any
Speaker 1: idea who I was, right, and everywhere I'd go, I'd
Speaker 1: end up and somebody, some nice time person would come
Speaker 1: up to me and offer me to smoke something like.
Speaker 1: I called it the wheat Fair because I mean i'd
Speaker 1: be in this. I was on a bus in Fiji
Speaker 1: and this dude, the Indian dude, walked to the back
Speaker 1: and he sit down and he offers me some rice
Speaker 1: and then we start talking and he's like, hey, do
Speaker 1: you wanna you know, my uncle has some plans you
Speaker 1: wanna go smoking and like, you know, break bread together.
Speaker 1: And I was like sure, I was inside. The same
Speaker 1: thing happened. I was in Australia, the same thing happened.
Speaker 1: So I started to be like, there's something I am.
Speaker 1: I can't help it. There's something going on here. And
Speaker 1: and so I just followed that. Since so when you
Speaker 1: how old were you when you first started smoking marijuana?
Speaker 1: So the first time I smoked it was I was
Speaker 1: a junior in a high school. I grew up in
Speaker 1: San Diego, so it was a round. Yeah. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was a jock though, so it was like a one
Speaker 1: time experience and I didn't like it, and so I
Speaker 1: didn't really I didn't really mess with me. And then
Speaker 1: I got to college and my college roommate he spoke,
Speaker 1: and so sometimes on Fridays, the guys would come around
Speaker 1: and they would pass it around and I would just
Speaker 1: do it to social but you know, I wasn't really
Speaker 1: into it. And then it was my senior year. It's funny.
Speaker 1: One thing about my senior year. We played a lot
Speaker 1: of Madden and I played with the Bronco. You were
Speaker 1: you were an inspiration. You were an inspiration to be
Speaker 1: that year. So I was running for the Heisman and
Speaker 1: my girlfriend my girl for two years. Okay, we broke up,
Speaker 1: and it's like, right after we broke up, I went
Speaker 1: to her, I went to a house to bring her
Speaker 1: stuff back, and your quarterback on the football team's car
Speaker 1: was parked. Oh for real, for really, you didn't even
Speaker 1: head up back door you. He was heading the ball
Speaker 1: to the foot and then stealing you. You're from the back.
Speaker 1: Oh my done the rouse. That's that's how it started.
Speaker 1: And I was like obsessing about this, and my my
Speaker 1: friend was like, dude, you gotta chill, and so he
Speaker 1: just brought it out. He said you got it, and
Speaker 1: I did. And it was the first time where I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I wasn't obsessing, I wasn't thinking about
Speaker 1: it I can sleep and relax. And from that moment,
Speaker 1: I noticed, okay, this this can be helpful to me.
Speaker 1: So when you failed your first so did they not
Speaker 1: testing college or did you never felt a test in college?
Speaker 1: Or did they keep that hush? So again this this
Speaker 1: was this was way in my senior year and it
Speaker 1: was just that one experience where I realized, okay, like
Speaker 1: this is nice. But I didn't become a smoker. Then.
Speaker 1: It was just when I had that first experience and
Speaker 1: you know, they weren't going to test me. I was
Speaker 1: running there, you know, so they were but I wasn't
Speaker 1: smoking anyway. And then I got into the NFL and
Speaker 1: and again I kind of smoked on and off, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't a smoker, so it was easy to pass
Speaker 1: the drug test. What got me was when I was
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, it always tested us during training camp.
Speaker 1: And when I got traded to Miami, they tested in
Speaker 1: OTAs and nobody, I guess, nobody knew I smoked, so
Speaker 1: nobody told like passed the message to me. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I went in that morning and they were
Speaker 1: like a drug testing. I was like damn. And so
Speaker 1: then I got into the program. But really I wasn't
Speaker 1: even a smoker, you know, I just would smoke occasionally.
Speaker 1: But then I got in the program and it became
Speaker 1: like this big issue. And then I started to realize that, uh,
Speaker 1: that cannabis actually helped me, you know, because it it
Speaker 1: was like when I was there and I could use
Speaker 1: it and I didn't realize it, but when it was
Speaker 1: taking away, I started to realize, Wow, this was really
Speaker 1: doing something to help me deal with all the stress
Speaker 1: and take care of my body. And so although I
Speaker 1: was being tested, you know, I found a way that
Speaker 1: I could take like two hits the day after I
Speaker 1: got tested, and I would be cleaned for the next test.
Speaker 1: And this worked for like a year and a half.
Speaker 1: But then we were playing we were playing the Eagles
Speaker 1: on Monday night and uh, and it was like the
Speaker 1: game that I limited eliminated us from the playoffs, that
Speaker 1: I separated my shoulder and I just was in a
Speaker 1: bad spot. So I think I took a little bit
Speaker 1: too many hits. I took too too many. Dude called
Speaker 1: me in the dude call me in the morning, and
Speaker 1: he an he pissed tests me and then it came back.
Speaker 1: And then so that was number two and number two
Speaker 1: failed tests. I was like, I was a month away
Speaker 1: from being out of the program, but number two failed tests.
Speaker 1: They they they find you for four seventeenths of your
Speaker 1: salary and and so because of that they have to
Speaker 1: tell the team to take it out of your check.
Speaker 1: So then the team goes right, right, And so then
Speaker 1: I went into the office and they were like whatever,
Speaker 1: and I was like fine, and so it was like okay,
Speaker 1: and then I appealed the test because the A bottle
Speaker 1: was like point one five seven, the B bottle was underneath.
Speaker 1: So I felt like I had a case that I
Speaker 1: barely felt that one too many hits. I barely felt
Speaker 1: the test. So and so they came back and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: if you agreed to stay in the program for eight
Speaker 1: weeks of the season, then well well you're you're free, right,
Speaker 1: And so I said, that's two months. You got two months,
Speaker 1: No here, not too not one, just eight weeks, cold turkey.
Speaker 1: You out in the program completely. You can smoke much
Speaker 1: as you want. Yes, yes, it was. I was righting
Speaker 1: right in front of me. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I started thinking about is this really what I want
Speaker 1: to be doing with my life? No, as I started.
Speaker 1: I started, I started reading, I started opening my mind
Speaker 1: and realizing, you know, if I stayed doing this for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life, am I gonna have the
Speaker 1: time and the energy to be able to have the
Speaker 1: experiences that I want to have? And then I started
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I got enough money that I could
Speaker 1: be comfortably for the rest of my life. Then I
Speaker 1: started thinking, why am I even doing this? And so
Speaker 1: then I had to make a decision. I had to
Speaker 1: make a decision. And the decision I made is and again,
Speaker 1: when I made this decision, I, in my in my
Speaker 1: heart of hearts, I truly believe I was never coming back,
Speaker 1: not coming back to the NFL, not even coming back
Speaker 1: to America. Okay, I was all one, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie, but but I needed that, you know,
Speaker 1: I needed that. I needed that, and and thank goodness, right,
Speaker 1: and it's so interesting, I all comes full circle, okay,
Speaker 1: because you know I was out in Australia. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone in my mind, everyone I thought I lost my mind,
Speaker 1: but my my own personal path was I was reconnected
Speaker 1: to my spiritual roots and I was happening. I felt
Speaker 1: this deep connection to Jesus Christ, and I literally I
Speaker 1: wasn't really a huge reader, but at this point in
Speaker 1: my life, I was trying to read everything I could
Speaker 1: about Jesus and I ended up, you know, reading the Gospels,
Speaker 1: and I came across a verse in Matthew and it
Speaker 1: changed everything for me. Right. The verse was, if you
Speaker 1: give up home, family, you know, if you give up everything,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking for me, it will all be returned
Speaker 1: to you. And I found solace in that. I found
Speaker 1: solace in that, and it came true. I was able
Speaker 1: after that year away to find myself. I was able
Speaker 1: to come back, reintegrate into the Dolphins, have another thousand
Speaker 1: yard season, finished my career with ten thousand yards rushing,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I was able to make to
Speaker 1: make it all work, you know, to turn something that
Speaker 1: could have turned into a crash and burn story to
Speaker 1: turn it into an uplifting story. Ricky, do you believe
Speaker 1: you said you started smoking? What really got you on
Speaker 1: the path to smoking continuous was their situation with your girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Do you believe she broke up because uh, she was
Speaker 1: seeing the other guy or you guys wanted to separate
Speaker 1: and then it bothered you because it was a teammate,
Speaker 1: because I don't know, would you have started smoking if
Speaker 1: the guy was on the basketball team, with a baseball
Speaker 1: team or just the regular Joe smo walking campus. It
Speaker 1: was you know, it was it was a lot. It
Speaker 1: was a lot. So when I was in when I
Speaker 1: was in college, I used to play I played mynor
Speaker 1: League baseball and so and so at the end of
Speaker 1: at the end of finals in May, I take my
Speaker 1: last final, I get in my car, I drive this
Speaker 1: Florida to start playing baseball. And then I come back
Speaker 1: in August. So like the day before, the day before
Speaker 1: I left crazy college story day before I left, Like then,
Speaker 1: my girl we got into an art you know, and
Speaker 1: it was just it just we were like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: let's break up. You got into an argument before she
Speaker 1: started it Ricky. Then this actually it was mostly my
Speaker 1: fam at this time. It actually was it was her,
Speaker 1: but anyway, so we got we got into an argument,
Speaker 1: and then I was like all right. And then and
Speaker 1: then I went to Florida. But after a week I
Speaker 1: was like yeah, and so we started talking and started
Speaker 1: kind of like working on the relationship. And at the
Speaker 1: time her and the quarterback were friends, and I knew
Speaker 1: they hung out and they were hanging out, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, time about
Speaker 1: time about that? Let me get a time about pool.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a full time about not a twenty second.
Speaker 1: I need a full time about You mean to tell
Speaker 1: me you got a girlfriend and you allow her to
Speaker 1: hang out with guys She told about, Oh that's my friend. Well,
Speaker 1: because we don't hung out together before. So oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah we we we ain't. No, we ain't. No. Once
Speaker 1: I leave, he could still hang out. Oh hey, I'll no.
Speaker 1: I learned. I learned the hard way. Like you said,
Speaker 1: I'm too trusted. You said, yeah, trusted, I'm too trusted.
Speaker 1: And so it's funny. So I came back, you know,
Speaker 1: and we worked it out. And so I came back
Speaker 1: and she I was driving back to New York to
Speaker 1: come back to training camp. She met me in Tennessee,
Speaker 1: you know, in Nashville, and we drove the rest of
Speaker 1: the way back and we decided, okay, we're gonna work
Speaker 1: on us. And as we're starting to like go there,
Speaker 1: she's like spending a lot of time with dude, like
Speaker 1: shooting pool and and and I'm thinking, okay, it feels
Speaker 1: kind of strange, but yeah, yeah, yeah, but they're friends
Speaker 1: and so and then it was we played We played Ucla.
Speaker 1: It was the second game of the year, and it
Speaker 1: was the day after. I was sitting in a hotel
Speaker 1: and some and somehow my girlfriend's name came up and
Speaker 1: somebody was like, that's not Rippy's girl, that's Blah Blah's girl.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I was like wait. I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a mid wait a minute. I popped out of
Speaker 1: the hot teb and I went back and we had
Speaker 1: pay phone and went to the pay phone and traded
Speaker 1: in the facility and I picked up and I called
Speaker 1: her and I and I told her when I just heard,
Speaker 1: and she had that pause, you know when they pause,
Speaker 1: you got it. You got it because she she Paul,
Speaker 1: She's thinking him a lot of ten you because she
Speaker 1: could have just came up, she Paul, because you caused.
Speaker 1: And I knew that. I knew. I knew, I knew,
Speaker 1: I knew. And then I was like okay, and I
Speaker 1: just then it got bad and like you said, and
Speaker 1: then it was the crazy part in the In the
Speaker 1: Ucla game, starting quarterback was my was my homie. He
Speaker 1: hurt himself and then the backup quarterback who who's still married.
Speaker 1: They're still married and the whole story when you can't
Speaker 1: be mad about that because they got married. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. That's what I'm saying that that's why. But
Speaker 1: at the time I didn't know that. Now that's why
Speaker 1: you still good with it now. On one time, one
Speaker 1: time I lost my temper, one time I lost my temper,
Speaker 1: and practice one time I kept you fine and I
Speaker 1: just I just you know, he kind of like an
Speaker 1: audible or something wrong and I just threw the ball
Speaker 1: is helping real hard from close. But I lost my crep,
Speaker 1: lost my crew for that one moment. But the thing
Speaker 1: you look, Okay, maybe they were meant to be together,
Speaker 1: but y'all not meant to be together. Why we together?
Speaker 1: Y'all can't be working on that behind me, y'all. That's
Speaker 1: all I'm trying to say. That's all I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing you, I'm about to go. It's great time
Speaker 1: you got you know, yeah, okay, okay, okay, So but
Speaker 1: I can understand that, I can understand what started you
Speaker 1: on that path, because you know problem up until then, Rick,
Speaker 1: you're probably smoking that mile screen probably on a scale
Speaker 1: of teen, probably a three or four. But what was
Speaker 1: that happened? You probably went to that head and still
Speaker 1: like nine. I'm telling you, I wasn't even smoking before then.
Speaker 1: I just was like just batro good. Everything was good.
Speaker 1: Everything was good. After that, it wasn't so good no more.
Speaker 1: So I had to I had to find my balance. Okay,
Speaker 1: you win the Heisman, you break torn, the door sets
Speaker 1: on hand, you rush for the repue, you break the record,
Speaker 1: you win the hides. When you're a first round draft pick,
Speaker 1: Mike Dick, who's the head coach of the New Orleans Saints,
Speaker 1: trades an entire draft to draft Ricky Williams, and you
Speaker 1: knew something that's that was very unique and surprised a
Speaker 1: lot of people. You hired a guy to represent you
Speaker 1: that had never represented an NFL player. Now, this is
Speaker 1: not a shot at Masterpiece, because he's done a great
Speaker 1: job in the record industry. He's done a great job
Speaker 1: since of building his brand. But what made you signed
Speaker 1: with a guy that had never represented someone in this field? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: like I said, I played minor league baseball, and so
Speaker 1: I had a baseball agent that I liked, and so
Speaker 1: I just figured as I went into football, I just
Speaker 1: would keep the same agent, and so it was easy
Speaker 1: for me to tell all the agents, you know, to
Speaker 1: stay away, but or the runners to stay away. But
Speaker 1: Master P had a Runners dude and Terry, and Terry
Speaker 1: was just cool, you know, and me and Terry we
Speaker 1: just would kicking and we could talk, and he was
Speaker 1: I'm person I could be real with. But I didn't
Speaker 1: think it would turn anything because I already had an agent. Well,
Speaker 1: something fell apart in that agency and they and they
Speaker 1: fell apart. So then I was like in need of
Speaker 1: an agent, and so I started talking to different agents
Speaker 1: and it just felt like slimy and so in my mind,
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I'm you know, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a top you know five. I think I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: a top three. But anyways, I think I gonna be
Speaker 1: a top three pick, and that you know, I could
Speaker 1: be creative with this contract and do it the way
Speaker 1: that I want to do it, and then I could
Speaker 1: do it in partnership with with peas company known in
Speaker 1: the sports. And the bigger thing was was really just
Speaker 1: to make a statement, you know that we don't have
Speaker 1: to do it the same way that you can do
Speaker 1: it different ways, and so and so when I started
Speaker 1: working with the agent uh Leland Leland Hardy, we started
Speaker 1: working on the contract negotiations. It got down to the
Speaker 1: point where he laid out three three options for me.
Speaker 1: He said, this option will make you the you know,
Speaker 1: the highest paid rookie contract in the history of the NFL.
Speaker 1: This one will we'll you know, we'll give you a
Speaker 1: big signing bonus, but we'll you know, we can put
Speaker 1: in sentence and for you to become the highest paid player.
Speaker 1: And then the middle one is kind of in between
Speaker 1: where you get a big chunk of guaranteed money, but
Speaker 1: we have some more mind of the sentence. And I said,
Speaker 1: and this is all on me. I said, to trust it.
Speaker 1: I said, I want the one where I get the
Speaker 1: signing bonus for what I've done before, but I want
Speaker 1: to have to earn. I'm gonna have to earn the
Speaker 1: rest and what we did, but the trophy and being
Speaker 1: the all time is a Russian champ. You earned that
Speaker 1: signing bonus and whatever else. But see, and that's where
Speaker 1: the agent supposed to cut in and working your best interest, Ricky,
Speaker 1: I cannot in good faith I allow you to sign
Speaker 1: this contract because X Y Z might happen and then
Speaker 1: you won't reach these and sentiens. He did, he did,
Speaker 1: He did say that. He did say that. But but
Speaker 1: it's my it's my bonehead, and I acknowledge it. The
Speaker 1: one you said it. The one thing that I didn't see,
Speaker 1: that I didn't realize is what if I get hurt
Speaker 1: and I can't play? And the first preseason game, first
Speaker 1: preseason game, high engles pray. It happened quickly. Plus also
Speaker 1: what you learned from playing in the NFL. They also
Speaker 1: can control whether or not you get those insatives. So
Speaker 1: instead of Ricky getting his twenty five thirty carries all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, they give Ricky fifteen ten carries instead
Speaker 1: of Rickie. Happened, It happened, It happened, It happened. It happened.
Speaker 1: I mean my second, my second, my third year in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, I was leading the NFC in Russian. We
Speaker 1: got towards the end of the season, we didn't make
Speaker 1: the playoffs. They started playing duce boy. I started playing.
Speaker 1: So this is going on. So were you smoking in
Speaker 1: New Orleans? Not? Not my rookie year. I started going
Speaker 1: getting my second year after I broke my ankle, you know,
Speaker 1: it was. It was one of those things where my
Speaker 1: rookie year again, I missed six missed four games my
Speaker 1: rookie year, and I played hurt pretty much every game
Speaker 1: but two, and so I underperformed obviously. And so that
Speaker 1: was the first time in my life that I ever
Speaker 1: performed on the football field. And so when I came
Speaker 1: back that next year, Dicky was I had a new
Speaker 1: coach who didn't like me because I was tired to Dikka.
Speaker 1: But I would improve myself and I did know. I
Speaker 1: got to week ten of my thousandth yard. Week ten,
Speaker 1: my thousandth yard, broke my ankle, and in uh start,
Speaker 1: that's when I started smoking again, you know, dealing dealing
Speaker 1: with like I finally was. I was, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: finally making I was finally making it back. And then
Speaker 1: and then this, you know, and and part of it
Speaker 1: it got me to thinking, Okay, like if there's got
Speaker 1: to be something more to life than just just up
Speaker 1: and down writing on whether my success on the football
Speaker 1: fill defines my happiness, and to me, I had to
Speaker 1: find something something else to define myself by. Had you
Speaker 1: been allowed to smoke? Do you believe your NFL career
Speaker 1: would have been more productive. But now you had a
Speaker 1: great career. I mean, ten thousand yards is nothing to
Speaker 1: sneeze at. But do you believe you would have had
Speaker 1: even a more productive career had you been allowed to smoke?
Speaker 1: Of course, no doubt about it, because so much you know,
Speaker 1: after two thy two hundred the NFL and I came back,
Speaker 1: so much of the story around me was it just
Speaker 1: was this heaviness in this you know, the stigma around
Speaker 1: me and fell in that test and leaving, and I
Speaker 1: think it just it wasn't all that heaviness around my
Speaker 1: around my career that there was just a cleared space
Speaker 1: and I could do what I do and around the
Speaker 1: football and whenever they're you know, there weren't those times
Speaker 1: where there was that space. I showed up, you know,
Speaker 1: I put up numbers. Let me ask you about the
Speaker 1: helmet situation, because you did a lot of your interviews
Speaker 1: with your helmet on. Were you always like this or
Speaker 1: was it the expectations of someone gave up their entire
Speaker 1: draft and the expectations of youthful supposing to be one
Speaker 1: of these historically great NFL running backs? Because what did
Speaker 1: you always do interviews at the University of Texas with
Speaker 1: your helmet on. That was done. Go ahead. I never
Speaker 1: I never did it. So the way it started is,
Speaker 1: you know, so the first preseason game and go to
Speaker 1: my own get get an ankle spraience, and then I'm
Speaker 1: already like chilling, like damn, you know, not a great
Speaker 1: way to start. And the media, the media just you know.
Speaker 1: I remember one day it was we were in the
Speaker 1: training camp and it was raining, and they put me
Speaker 1: on a golf cart to take me to like this
Speaker 1: covered area to do an interview. And as soon as
Speaker 1: I sat down to do the interview, the media, dude
Speaker 1: was like, take your helmet off, and I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: I just sat down. So I started off as kind
Speaker 1: of an active rebellion of you don't get to tell
Speaker 1: you don't get to tell me what to do, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of turned into something that actually felt comfortable,
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, my my humble way of
Speaker 1: saying fuck you to the media. And you know, because
Speaker 1: to me and this is my sensitivity to me, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you guys expect me to be this this
Speaker 1: image of what this football player is, but you don't
Speaker 1: even care who I am. On the inside, and so
Speaker 1: you say take the hell of it off. You don't
Speaker 1: really care who's under the helmet. You just care who's
Speaker 1: in the paths at off. So it just was a
Speaker 1: it was an active rebellion. So once you did that,
Speaker 1: you just kipt it on, said, well, help you, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep I'm gonna do my all my interviews were
Speaker 1: moving forward with my helmet on. Yeah, I didn't do
Speaker 1: all of them all the all the ones during the week.
Speaker 1: I would take my help off on Sundays for the
Speaker 1: postgame interview. Right. Mm. So you grew up in San Diego.
Speaker 1: You play football, obviously you played baseball. Were they any
Speaker 1: sports any other sports that you played? And did you
Speaker 1: always want to be an NFL player. I wrestled a
Speaker 1: little bit, uh in high school, and I love I
Speaker 1: loved it. I loved I ran track a little bit
Speaker 1: when we didn't make the playoffs when year in baseball
Speaker 1: and I ran track. But when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: I was seven years old and San Diego listening to
Speaker 1: the San Diego Padres on the radio. So I was
Speaker 1: a big, big, big baseball fan. Big yeah he was,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to be the right Anna Tony Gwins.
Speaker 1: I wanted to. I thought, I thought all the way
Speaker 1: until Draft Bay, until the NFL Combine. Actually I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to be a professional baseball player. But
Speaker 1: I went to the combine and NFL teams are like
Speaker 1: and I was like, all right, and so, and I
Speaker 1: was better at football, to be honest, So I stuck
Speaker 1: with football. So they gave you the basically NFL teams
Speaker 1: since una you either playing football, you play in baseball.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And I was like, okay, if I was
Speaker 1: smart with football right now, but have you had they
Speaker 1: given you a choice an opportunity, says, okay, you could
Speaker 1: do you feel you could have been at bow Jackson.
Speaker 1: You could have been a Dion Sanders played both sports.
Speaker 1: I mean I had, I had a lot of improvement
Speaker 1: to make in baseball, but I wouldn't have loved to have,
Speaker 1: you know, taken taken a shot. And because at the
Speaker 1: time the owner of the Texas Rangers was the UT
Speaker 1: alum and the UT donor, he uh, he put me
Speaker 1: on the pro roster for training camp with the with
Speaker 1: the Texas Rangers. So I was gonna get my shot.
Speaker 1: I was gonna need to get a shot. But I
Speaker 1: decided to stick with football. You were drafted in the
Speaker 1: eighth round by the Phillies out of high school. You
Speaker 1: got a seventy thousand dollars signing bonus. Did you think
Speaker 1: about not even going to college, not even playing? I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you could have went to college and played your
Speaker 1: own way. That was never, never, never, never, It never
Speaker 1: crossed my mind. I decided when I was eleven years
Speaker 1: old watching Notre Dame in football on NBC that I'm
Speaker 1: playing college football. I said, I don't care, I'm playing
Speaker 1: college football. And so when I was being recruited by
Speaker 1: the baseball teams, I said, I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: baseball player, but I need to play college football. And
Speaker 1: so everybody knew the deal. The football teams knew I
Speaker 1: was playing my OAR league baseball. All the baseball teams
Speaker 1: knew I was playing college football. You recruited Europe, Stanford,
Speaker 1: cal Texas. What made you choose the University of Texas?
Speaker 1: Texas and pret home one of my former teammates, what's
Speaker 1: your host? So what led you to go a callie
Speaker 1: kid going to Texas? Yeah, so you know, I made
Speaker 1: a list. I was one of the you know, most
Speaker 1: highly recruited players in the nation that year. And so
Speaker 1: I made a list of what I what I went
Speaker 1: out of the college experience. And one I wanted to
Speaker 1: start as a freshman. That was a that was a must. Two,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to a big program where people
Speaker 1: could see me on national television. Three I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to a place that had a strong education for
Speaker 1: I need having a relationship with the with the head coach.
Speaker 1: And five I was looking for a program that was
Speaker 1: right on the verge of being great again. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to be that missing piece. And so it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I ended up taking my trip to USC because they
Speaker 1: were probably they were like number one on my list.
Speaker 1: Texas was two. So I took my trip to USC,
Speaker 1: and I tripped to Texas like back to back days.
Speaker 1: So I got to compare both. And I went to
Speaker 1: USC and it was just all right. You know, the
Speaker 1: team kind of felt fractured, that kind of talked trash
Speaker 1: about each other. One of the dudes even told me,
Speaker 1: don't come here. We got two of the running backs
Speaker 1: I love. I love coach Robbins, I love Coach Robinson.
Speaker 1: It was a program, a big program, it was on
Speaker 1: the verge. So I had all those pieces except for
Speaker 1: I didn't have that family. Field went to Texas, I
Speaker 1: you know, talking talking to chach John mcavie talking about
Speaker 1: how he's going to use me as a fullback. I
Speaker 1: believed him and I respected his offensive mind, hung around
Speaker 1: the team, and the guys felt like a family. You know,
Speaker 1: there was one instant on the recruiting trip where where
Speaker 1: Lavell Pinkly, our big receiver in one of the backup
Speaker 1: running backs, like you know what, the throwing hands in
Speaker 1: the middle, like tagging like the times liked, but you like,
Speaker 1: I want to come here half an hour and here's
Speaker 1: what half an hour later, we're all back in the room,
Speaker 1: like right, Just see that they can they could intensify
Speaker 1: like that and they can squashton and be family and games.
Speaker 1: To me, that that spoke volumes to me. So it
Speaker 1: just Texas checked off on my boxes because you know,
Speaker 1: USC at that time was running back. You they had
Speaker 1: all the Hidsman Trophy winning running back and start you know,
Speaker 1: Garrett and O J and Marcus Salen and Charles White.
Speaker 1: Charles White was a running back coach. He was a
Speaker 1: running back coach too, and I love I love charming
Speaker 1: and again everything was there, except I just didn't feel
Speaker 1: good being around the guys on the team, and to me,
Speaker 1: I need to feel like family. I need to feel
Speaker 1: like family. Right, So was it difficult for you to
Speaker 1: juggle playing Amountorn League baseball and collegiate football. That was
Speaker 1: awesome because I got to get that of summer workouts
Speaker 1: in in base part there are dropped twenty pounds and
Speaker 1: be really even come back super fast, and so it
Speaker 1: was great. It was and I you know, I need
Speaker 1: a variety of my life and not league baseball. It's hard,
Speaker 1: it's really really hard. But it kept me sharp and
Speaker 1: it kept me in shape. Your junior year, the Heisman
Speaker 1: Trophy finalist was Randy Moss, Peyton Manning, Charles Charles Woodson.
Speaker 1: And did you actually did you think you had a
Speaker 1: chance to win? I think if you lead the nation
Speaker 1: in Russian and scoring, you shouldn't need you should have
Speaker 1: a chair, you shouldn't be up for We were four
Speaker 1: and seven minutes. You know the team. The team didn't
Speaker 1: play well, and so I think I was fit them.
Speaker 1: You broke Earl Campbell's who the Tyler roles. He broke
Speaker 1: his record eighteen hundred ninety three yards twenty five teschdowns,
Speaker 1: six two hundred yard games, he's walked in Texas. I
Speaker 1: mean you played a running back position. I mean you
Speaker 1: played a running back position and you go to University
Speaker 1: of Texas. That's who you're measured against. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: so this this speaks to it. So true story. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was at USC and they have this this fancy
Speaker 1: trophy room with all the heisman trophies. Okay, and I
Speaker 1: was at USC and a recruiting ship and I walked
Speaker 1: into the room and it was cool, right, It didn't
Speaker 1: It was just cool, right, that's cool Texas. Right. They
Speaker 1: had Earl's heisman trophy and this dusty like glass like
Speaker 1: I was kind of hidden away, and I remember like
Speaker 1: I walked out of the door and I looked at
Speaker 1: it and it was like, you know, I could hear
Speaker 1: that the angels singing, and it was like the message
Speaker 1: I got was if you come here, you can get
Speaker 1: one of these. And so that that connection to Earl,
Speaker 1: and and they showed me ocampbell highlights on my recruitionship.
Speaker 1: They took me to go meet him, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we started to create that bond. You know, I was
Speaker 1: christened by by Earl very very early on, and I could,
Speaker 1: uh sausage, yes, yeah, yeah, I mean I love Earl.
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's I mean he's been so it's
Speaker 1: like so good to me. He really had my back
Speaker 1: through everything, especially when I go back to the hall.
Speaker 1: Used to see him all the time. You go back
Speaker 1: for your senior year, So what was your expectations. Obviously
Speaker 1: you want to come back, possibly win the Husman, maybe
Speaker 1: being have the team in contention to win a national championship.
Speaker 1: So what was your thought process? Because there was a
Speaker 1: lot on the line, Ricky, you could get up all
Speaker 1: of a sudden. So so like I said, like I
Speaker 1: said when I when I, you know, as a kid,
Speaker 1: I said I want to play college football. And of
Speaker 1: course when I was a junior and I led, you know,
Speaker 1: then I started to kind of listen to all the
Speaker 1: talk agents reaching out, you know, then I and then
Speaker 1: I one day I was in my sid in the
Speaker 1: sports information director's office, and he had the college football
Speaker 1: Almanac on his death, and so I just just flipping
Speaker 1: through it and I kind of flipped to the all
Speaker 1: time leading rushing stats and I look and I was like,
Speaker 1: if I have a similar year when I had this year,
Speaker 1: I could be the all time leading rushier and I
Speaker 1: was like, oho, And I flipped a couple more pages
Speaker 1: to the all time touchstown lead, all time scoring the year,
Speaker 1: and I was like, if I have a similar year
Speaker 1: that I had last year, I could break this record too.
Speaker 1: And then I flipped all purpose yards and I was like,
Speaker 1: if I have a similar year and when I had
Speaker 1: last year, I can break this record too. And I
Speaker 1: was like, if I break all these records, there's no
Speaker 1: way I'm not gonna win in the Highs and so
Speaker 1: on that moment, I said I'm coming back, and the
Speaker 1: expectation was to break all three of those records, and
Speaker 1: and you did it. And I did it because you're
Speaker 1: seeing you're twenty one hundred over, twenty one hundred yards,
Speaker 1: twenty seven touchdown, school record, said twenty one NCAA records
Speaker 1: received eighty five percent of the vote the Highs. At
Speaker 1: that time, you're nowimous All American first day of a
Speaker 1: AP National Player of the Year, So you're feeling good.
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, I did what I said I was
Speaker 1: gonna do. Now I'm just gonna sit back. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be at like you said you thought you were gonna
Speaker 1: be a top three, at least at the bare minimum
Speaker 1: top three. I mean, I was really figuring Cleveland Browns
Speaker 1: coming back and expansive team. Of course, dark Pound needs
Speaker 1: a big running back, and I thought for sure, I
Speaker 1: thought for sure I was going to Cleveland. Ricky. When
Speaker 1: you look at it, when you look back, you and
Speaker 1: Earl you won the hisman. So when they think of
Speaker 1: running backs now, every running back that comes in, they
Speaker 1: get compared to Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams. You have
Speaker 1: the field name Earl Campbell, Ricky Williams field. What does
Speaker 1: that matter? I mean, when you go back, what does
Speaker 1: that make you feel? Like that they think that much
Speaker 1: and they thought that much of you. It says this
Speaker 1: guy is so special to us. We don't want anybody
Speaker 1: to ever remember that he was here and what he
Speaker 1: did for this university. Yeah, I mean I first got
Speaker 1: that when they erected the statue back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve. This feeling of and it was it was
Speaker 1: like it was a healing moment for me because all
Speaker 1: the ups and downs I went through it, and you know,
Speaker 1: the hits to my reputation. To come back to Texas
Speaker 1: and see they still found enough for me to erect
Speaker 1: a statue and then to put my name on the field.
Speaker 1: It just speaks to back to that question of when
Speaker 1: I was making a decision of where to go to school,
Speaker 1: you know, I felt that this is a place I
Speaker 1: could go or when people are gonna appreciate me and uh,
Speaker 1: and it speaks to that. And you know, I'm flying
Speaker 1: find a ofstin this this week and I'm gonna meet
Speaker 1: with athletic director and We're going to talk about how
Speaker 1: I can be more involved in the program. And so
Speaker 1: it's it feels really it feels really good know that
Speaker 1: no matter what happens in my life, I always have
Speaker 1: a home in Austin, Texas. I'm looking at that nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety and they're looking at that draft and Kim Cals
Speaker 1: was one, Donald McNabb was two, Achilley Smith was three,
Speaker 1: Edger and James four. You're five. But also in that
Speaker 1: draft Tory Holt, Champ Bailey, David Yeah, Dante Colepepper, Antoine
Speaker 1: Winfield senior who seeing junior just won the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So yeah, while you look
Speaker 1: at it, Kim Cows didn't live up to expectations. Donald
Speaker 1: McNabb had a great career, Achille Smith flamed out, Edrin
Speaker 1: James Hall of Fame, Rick yourself, what do I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys have a nice little draft there. Tory Hops
Speaker 1: was on Tory Hope was on the ballot this year. Eventually,
Speaker 1: probably within the next year two gonna get into the
Speaker 1: Pro Football Hall of Fame. Champs in the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's kind of that thing where you
Speaker 1: come you come out together, and so, you know, start
Speaker 1: starting my junior year doing the awards circuit and get
Speaker 1: and get into no kind of you know, the superstars
Speaker 1: of my era, and then to go into the draft
Speaker 1: and getting sharing that experienced each other and then sharing
Speaker 1: our careers with each other. You know, it feels like
Speaker 1: like brothers going into the Hall of Fame. Especially Ed
Speaker 1: you know, we came out the same year. You know,
Speaker 1: he was the first back. I was the second back,
Speaker 1: and just watching what he was able to do, especially
Speaker 1: the first couple of years I play his career, playing
Speaker 1: in in Indianapolis, and I often think, you know, what if,
Speaker 1: what if the Colts would have drafted me instead and
Speaker 1: I got to play alongside Payton Manny you think you
Speaker 1: think your career would have been different. I mean my
Speaker 1: quarterback FAMI year was two guys named Billie Joe. But
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on not Rick, hold on Rick, hold
Speaker 1: on that Rick. There's a there's this there's this plant
Speaker 1: that was that was that was starting to be involved
Speaker 1: in your life. So that going to play out? What
Speaker 1: do you mean the play at the plant? What do
Speaker 1: you mean how's it gonna play? I would have been good.
Speaker 1: I'd have been good at Indeed, I'll say it. I
Speaker 1: understand you would have been good. But how did that
Speaker 1: way with the drug test? You? Like? So we we
Speaker 1: what we? What we so if I I mean, we
Speaker 1: can tell the story a lot of different ways. But
Speaker 1: the way I'll tell it, Okay, I go. Let's say,
Speaker 1: let's say I'll go to Indianapolis. Uh, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like because it's at the same time.
Speaker 1: I'll know when the drug tests come and if I
Speaker 1: was playing well behind paid man, I'm not getting traded
Speaker 1: it and being in that situation. That's That's one way
Speaker 1: to tell the story. But but I'm not even trying
Speaker 1: to say I'm not even trying to say I wish
Speaker 1: my career would have been different. I'm just being hypothetical,
Speaker 1: like you know, like, yeah, it would be nice. It'd
Speaker 1: be nice if I was remembered for the way I
Speaker 1: played football, not for for the cannabis stuff. But I
Speaker 1: feel good about my career. I mean, I know everyone
Speaker 1: that I played with it as respect for me. I
Speaker 1: know that I enjoyed myself. I know that I was
Speaker 1: able to create a better life for my family, and
Speaker 1: I was able to do all this other shit. So
Speaker 1: I feel, honestly, I feel good about what where I
Speaker 1: left things. Uh, explain to me the cover of ESPN
Speaker 1: the magazine you did the story. Obviously, Mike Dicker was
Speaker 1: the head coach. He trades in an entire draft to
Speaker 1: move up to select you with the fifth pick in
Speaker 1: the draft, and you put a wedding dress on were obviously.
Speaker 1: I mean the thing the first thing comes to mind
Speaker 1: is Dennis Rodman. Yeah, with that was that one of
Speaker 1: your heroes? Was he? Did he inspire you to do this?
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, not directly. I mean it's interesting that
Speaker 1: right around at the same time that I did that,
Speaker 1: I met Dinnis for the first time. We actually hung out.
Speaker 1: We actually hung out, but I didn't make the connection
Speaker 1: until right now. So so Dan Letatard, who who at
Speaker 1: the time writing for the Miami Heralds also writing for ESPN.
Speaker 1: The magazine came out and we became friends. He did
Speaker 1: the story on me before I won the so we
Speaker 1: became friends, and he said, you know, ESPN and magazine
Speaker 1: wants to do the story on you and Dicka and
Speaker 1: they and they want to put you on the cover.
Speaker 1: So you know, he said, we're throwing around different ideas
Speaker 1: on you know, what you can wear, and so this
Speaker 1: one on for like a month and a half and
Speaker 1: these different ideas and we're not don't know, and then
Speaker 1: it was just kind of like, let's just do this,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, the newest idea is that since
Speaker 1: you guys were you know, linked, that we do you know,
Speaker 1: you and a wedding dress and him and a tuxedo.
Speaker 1: And when he said it, I started laughing no, because
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny. And so my response was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. That's funny. And then when I got
Speaker 1: to the photo shoot and I was putting on this
Speaker 1: wedding dress, I started to think, like, what's going when
Speaker 1: I when I get myself into And then after after
Speaker 1: the photo shoot. I was in the limo with Coach Dicka.
Speaker 1: We were driving back to the facility and he had
Speaker 1: a cigar to chan. He looked at me and he
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know what they had to tell
Speaker 1: you to get you to put that wedding dress on.
Speaker 1: But I never would have done that. And I looked
Speaker 1: at him and I said, why did you tell me
Speaker 1: that before? So he tell you after the fact. Oh,
Speaker 1: I would have never done that exactly. And for me,
Speaker 1: I just thought it was funny. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: even think of how people would take it. But I
Speaker 1: still think, I mean, I still think it's funny. It
Speaker 1: just was interesting, how you know, people amy a hard
Speaker 1: time about it, right, because the the title for better
Speaker 1: for Worse, because that's what kind of like a marriage
Speaker 1: is richness and hit a rich and richness and poor
Speaker 1: and sicknesses and help. So basically, you and coach Dicker
Speaker 1: would join no matter what, for better for worse, you
Speaker 1: and Coach Dicker would go be linked forever. And again
Speaker 1: I got hurt, didn't play well, and he was fine
Speaker 1: after the end of the season. It was real. So
Speaker 1: let me ask your question your your career in New Orleans,
Speaker 1: are you upset that go quite the way you anticipated,
Speaker 1: or is there something you wish you could have done differently?
Speaker 1: Aside obviously you don't want to get hurt, but what
Speaker 1: could you have done differently? You know? I think I
Speaker 1: could have found mentors, you know, I think when I
Speaker 1: look back, what I didn't have was was good mentorship,
Speaker 1: you know, someone that had been there and just just
Speaker 1: kind of guided me a little bit. So one thing
Speaker 1: I you know, when I went to New Orleans, I
Speaker 1: got a place way out in the birds, you know,
Speaker 1: entire economists isolated. I think I would have I would
Speaker 1: have got like I would have done. I would have
Speaker 1: just approached it differently, you know, right, I just would
Speaker 1: have approached it differently. You staying in New Orleans, you
Speaker 1: get traded to the Dolphins. You rush over eighteen hundred yards,
Speaker 1: sixteen touchdown both the still Dolphins record Pro Bowler, first
Speaker 1: team All Pro, ten games of one hundred yards. So
Speaker 1: your career gets off in Miami to a roaring start.
Speaker 1: And what happened happened so so in two thousand so
Speaker 1: two thousand two lead leading rushing and I had a
Speaker 1: track record my whole entire life. You know, at every level,
Speaker 1: I constantly like improved, it got better, and so in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm thinking, you know, after this year, I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: two two eighteen hundred yards two, you know, two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, that means two thousand yards. No, I'm back.
Speaker 1: I'm back. I'm back in that mood. And and you know,
Speaker 1: I get in the best shape of my life, shape
Speaker 1: of my life. And we start the season and it
Speaker 1: just seemed like it was me against eleven other people.
Speaker 1: So I remember we played we played Buffalo and Week two,
Speaker 1: I mean I carried about forty two times. And then
Speaker 1: it got to the point where, you know, and he
Speaker 1: admits it now, Coach Wants said, said, you know, I
Speaker 1: got to the point where I didn't believe in our
Speaker 1: passing game. I just believe the defense. And so we
Speaker 1: just gonna play deference and just hand you the ball.
Speaker 1: And so you know, that's what we did. And I
Speaker 1: just got I just got beat up, and I just
Speaker 1: got beat up. And I just got beat up and
Speaker 1: wasn't able to put up the same kind of numbers.
Speaker 1: After three years in Miami, you're the bail cor back.
Speaker 1: You walk away from it. Numerous failed drug tests at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty seven, you say, forget bumped this,
Speaker 1: I'm out. What would your thought press, thought process behind
Speaker 1: that decision? Well, it was it was I mean, part
Speaker 1: of it was a thought process, and I think it
Speaker 1: started with the thought process, but part of it was
Speaker 1: just noticing signs and signals in my life, you know.
Speaker 1: So so after that two thousand and three seasons, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had surgery on my shoulders in the off season
Speaker 1: and I started to think, Okay, I started to do
Speaker 1: the math here. Okay, if we if this keeps on going,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able actually to make it
Speaker 1: very much longer. And I've been in talks with the
Speaker 1: Dolphins about renegotiating my contract. And so we went to
Speaker 1: the Dolphins and I said, you know, I can tell
Speaker 1: if you guys don't do something and you just keep
Speaker 1: feeding me the ball, like this is not gonna last.
Speaker 1: You guys need to take care of me, and you know,
Speaker 1: and we started going back and forth, and I think
Speaker 1: one thing I was really disrespected by it You're gonna
Speaker 1: give me the ball this time, and then when I
Speaker 1: try to say take care of me, you're gonna do this.
Speaker 1: And so that was part part of it. That other
Speaker 1: part at the same time, north Turner was offensive coordinating.
Speaker 1: I love north Turner as an offensive on the schemer.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he can call offensive on gad. He
Speaker 1: got the head coaching job at Oakland and my position coach,
Speaker 1: Joe Collier, became the offensive coordinator, and so I was
Speaker 1: feeling good about this, you know, but still we didn't
Speaker 1: have a quarterback yet, and so I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we need to do something to make sure I'm not
Speaker 1: taking taking you know, the beating, and Joel and and
Speaker 1: the offensive staff they kind of get into a fight
Speaker 1: and Joel says, fuck this, I'm not being the offensive coordinator.
Speaker 1: And then they promoted the tight ends coach, who had
Speaker 1: never been an offensive coordinator to the offensive coordinated position.
Speaker 1: And so I'm thinking the contract negotiations, I feel disrespected.
Speaker 1: I can tell this season is going to come down
Speaker 1: to me getting the ball in every play. And then
Speaker 1: and all this drug test ship, I was like, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just all the times were saying I need
Speaker 1: to be doing something else right now. And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: another thing, in the meantime between between our OTAs and
Speaker 1: UH and training camp, one of my good friends was
Speaker 1: Lenny Kravitz personal assistant, and they were they were on
Speaker 1: tour in Europe and we had that time off and
Speaker 1: she and she and she was like, why don't you
Speaker 1: come hang out with us before training camp? And I
Speaker 1: was like, I could. I could work out in the hotels.
Speaker 1: I can stay a shape. So I got on a
Speaker 1: plane and went there and then just being in another
Speaker 1: countree and just living like that. When I came back
Speaker 1: and started thinking about training camp, I just was like,
Speaker 1: I don't got I don't got it in me. I
Speaker 1: don't got it in me. And so that was it.
Speaker 1: That was so that was the thought process. You got
Speaker 1: on a plane, you flew to watch Lenny Kravitz tour
Speaker 1: through Europe. It was time for you to get back
Speaker 1: on a plane. You come did you? Did you come back?
Speaker 1: You come back and started thinking, man as hot as hell?
Speaker 1: It got worse. So I came back. Actually I came
Speaker 1: back and then I and then I became good friends
Speaker 1: with Bob Marley's brother, Richie. So I came back for
Speaker 1: a day and Richie was like, hey, let's go to
Speaker 1: Jamaica since you have some time off. So I grew
Speaker 1: up a huge Bob Marley fan, and so we flew.
Speaker 1: We flew to Jamaica and I went to where Bob
Speaker 1: the Bob's hometown where he grew up, and it just
Speaker 1: wasn't like a spiritual experience for me. And then from
Speaker 1: there I flew to the Bahamas to me one of
Speaker 1: my good friends in Texas, Alama. We hung out and
Speaker 1: I just started thinking, like this kind of feels better
Speaker 1: than going back and getting broken, getting broke out, no money.
Speaker 1: It just it just made sense to me, and I
Speaker 1: paid the time for me. Did yourself different? You heard? Look,
Speaker 1: you heard what was said when people would call you
Speaker 1: crazy Stuf. My man, he crazy, he apot head, he
Speaker 1: did YadA, YadA YadA. Did that affect you? You know?
Speaker 1: I think I was smart enough that when I again,
Speaker 1: when I retired, it was that feeling of what it
Speaker 1: felt like when I was traveling. So as soon as
Speaker 1: I was free, I started traveling again, I went back
Speaker 1: to that feeling. As I was traveling, I wasn't watching
Speaker 1: the news, and this was before you know, Twitter and
Speaker 1: all this stuff, so it didn't exist for me, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I would talk to my agent, and I
Speaker 1: talked to my girls sometimes and they would be worried
Speaker 1: and stressed about things, but I was feeling so like
Speaker 1: alive and free. And really, I'm telling you, I thought,
Speaker 1: what that moment where I called doctor Brown and I
Speaker 1: said I'm through, I felt like this huge weight lifted
Speaker 1: off my shoulders and I just felt free for the
Speaker 1: first time in a long time. So I didn't really
Speaker 1: care what anybody was thinking because I was feeling good.
Speaker 1: And you know, as I kind of starting to to
Speaker 1: like get free, I started to realize, Okay, you know though,
Speaker 1: I do have to finish them in my life, and
Speaker 1: so I started to make a plan out, say how
Speaker 1: am I gonna How am I gonna get on with things?
Speaker 1: So when you when you when you take that time off,
Speaker 1: did you have a reentry plan or did you just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay here. And like you said, you your
Speaker 1: energy type of guy. You're a field type of guy.
Speaker 1: You said you left the NFL because it didn't feel right.
Speaker 1: Now you're in this situation because it feels right. So
Speaker 1: what was your re entry or you're just gonna travel
Speaker 1: Australia living a seven dollars day tent, you know, smoke
Speaker 1: a little bit, have a good time. But I mean, like,
Speaker 1: like it's smoke, it's not. I mean, it is a
Speaker 1: good time. But when I consider a good time, it's
Speaker 1: sitting in my tent reading a book, okay, And that's
Speaker 1: that's what I do when I smoke. You can read
Speaker 1: right here in the States too, you know, you can
Speaker 1: read an apartment too. With life, it was different. It
Speaker 1: was different reading with people when people don't know who
Speaker 1: I am. And I got to be more of myself.
Speaker 1: Yea again for me, I needed that, and so and
Speaker 1: so I didn't. I mean, you're right on it. I
Speaker 1: what really was trusting. The way I found and the
Speaker 1: way I found at one time was I don't ever
Speaker 1: need to come back, you know. And so it's a
Speaker 1: funny story. I was. I was met this dude in
Speaker 1: the swamp in Australia and we decided we were gonna
Speaker 1: go to the Himalayas, and so we were on our way.
Speaker 1: We were on our way today. So you just disfur
Speaker 1: the moment you just about to fly by the seat
Speaker 1: of your pants type of guy. Oh you let's go there, Okay, fine, sure,
Speaker 1: let's do that. I'm thinking about going over here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do that too. I mean, if you if I
Speaker 1: had the bunnies. I mean, yeah, exactly, exact, exact, yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I was. We were on our way. We
Speaker 1: were on our way to the Himalays, and we stopped
Speaker 1: over in Thailand for a couple of days. And on
Speaker 1: the day we were supposed to go to the hanimlay As,
Speaker 1: I was sitting in this little hostile hotel thing and
Speaker 1: this little town in Thailand, okay, Kurt Randam, and this
Speaker 1: little dude walks in front of me and he turns
Speaker 1: on the TV and the lobby and it's the Raiders
Speaker 1: are playing the Buccaneers, and I'm thinking, how the hell,
Speaker 1: how the hell is at football? Like I tried to
Speaker 1: get away. I tried to get away from the ship
Speaker 1: at the corner of the globe, and then it comes
Speaker 1: right here, and I took that as a sign. I
Speaker 1: got on the phone, and so that was my first
Speaker 1: re entry back into America. I got on the phone
Speaker 1: and I told my agent, Hey, give me the next
Speaker 1: fight from Bangkok back to la and then I flew
Speaker 1: back to you. I came back later. I made it
Speaker 1: a couple of years later. But this I was so
Speaker 1: so close. I mean, but I'm telling you, if I
Speaker 1: would have gone to him, las, we would not be talking.
Speaker 1: We would not be talking right now, I'll be gone somewhere.
Speaker 1: So during that time you're away from the NFL, give
Speaker 1: me a typical day for Ricky Williaves. You would wake
Speaker 1: up at what time and do what and then move forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so probably so I was. I was sleeping outside and
Speaker 1: I was in nature, and I was finding even the
Speaker 1: sun was going down at six o'clock, I wanted to
Speaker 1: go to bed six. So I was waking up at
Speaker 1: five o'clock in the morning with the birds, and I
Speaker 1: usually get up and I would take the walk. I
Speaker 1: would take a walk down to meet to meet swamp guy,
Speaker 1: to meet my friend Stephen, and then we would walk
Speaker 1: into town and we would get we would get the
Speaker 1: food for the day, and then we walked back to
Speaker 1: the hospital the campground when I was staying and we
Speaker 1: would talk and I would read, and that's really that
Speaker 1: was my day. It was really a lot of reading. Again.
Speaker 1: I was reading the Bible. I was just really getting
Speaker 1: into opening my mind. You returned in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: You played for coach Saban. How was it playing for
Speaker 1: coach Saban? What was he? What was he like? Because
Speaker 1: we know the success that he's had at the University
Speaker 1: of Alabama. We know the success he had as a
Speaker 1: college coach, but for whatever reason, he wasn't able to
Speaker 1: parlay that success until NFL success. What was he like? So,
Speaker 1: you know, I played with him one year before before
Speaker 1: I got suspended, and I loved playing for Coach Saving.
Speaker 1: You know, I loved it because he was one of
Speaker 1: those coaches where you know, you knew what the standard
Speaker 1: was and if you met the standards, you were good.
Speaker 1: If you didn't, he was gonna be on it. And
Speaker 1: he had this thing called the Tiger board. And at first,
Speaker 1: you know, we thought it was this college bullshit, but
Speaker 1: it was a boy right when you walking into the
Speaker 1: team meeting room, and basically it was did you play hard?
Speaker 1: Basically what it was. So when you became this thing,
Speaker 1: or you walked in on Monday and you just want
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're on the Tiger board. And
Speaker 1: so it created where everyone was just playing hard. And
Speaker 1: we got off to a rough start, but we ended
Speaker 1: the season winning six games in a row and we
Speaker 1: beat a playoff bound Charger team would beat a playoff
Speaker 1: bound Patriots team. So so and then the next year,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't on the team, and so I
Speaker 1: don't really even know what happened. But my experience that
Speaker 1: Nick Saban is I love him and I would play
Speaker 1: for him any day again because he set the standard
Speaker 1: and it was all about show up, you know, get better,
Speaker 1: make plays. You mentioned the following your two thousand and
Speaker 1: six you were suspended again you failed a drug task.
Speaker 1: So at that point, did you think your career was over?
Speaker 1: I did. I did think my career was over there,
Speaker 1: and for me, the question I had was, you know
Speaker 1: what next. It sent me to Boston and I met
Speaker 1: this doctor, doctor Gunderson, and it was for part of
Speaker 1: my psyche val, and we just had a really connect
Speaker 1: deep connection. And as I was talking to him, I
Speaker 1: was realizing, you know, maybe there's some stuff about myself
Speaker 1: that I'm not aware of that's getting me in these
Speaker 1: kinds of situations. And so I decided to move to
Speaker 1: Boston for six months and I spoke to doctor Gunderson
Speaker 1: five days a week six months, and I also did groups.
Speaker 1: So I really did this deep immersion, really attending to
Speaker 1: to my mental health, and what I got out of
Speaker 1: it was clarity. And what I realized is, you know,
Speaker 1: football had got me to this point. But what I
Speaker 1: really want to be doing with my life is closer
Speaker 1: to what doctor Gunderson was doing and really helping people
Speaker 1: find themselves. And that really got my mind like straight about,
Speaker 1: you know, my purpose in life and what I'm here
Speaker 1: to do, and that really set me on the road
Speaker 1: that I'm on to Now. I know you got to go, Ricky,
Speaker 1: Uh you finished with the Ravens. You have a great season.
Speaker 1: When did you know you were going to walk away?
Speaker 1: That this was it? I'm walking away this time, but
Speaker 1: I'm not coming back. So you know, that year with
Speaker 1: the Ravens, it was nice. You know, we were this
Speaker 1: close from going to the super Bowl, and I really
Speaker 1: love that organization. I love playing with Ed Read and
Speaker 1: Ray Right and Ray Lewis. But I didn't get it.
Speaker 1: I didn't. We got along on the outside, but I
Speaker 1: had some issues like with ray Rice a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of like, you know, like it
Speaker 1: just felt like it was like this. I was used
Speaker 1: to splitting time with Ronnie Brown and me and Ronnie
Speaker 1: were like tight and and we we competed with each other.
Speaker 1: We wanted to see each other and succeed. But with
Speaker 1: Ray it felt like this weird kind of competition, and
Speaker 1: so it was this game plan, you know, and and
Speaker 1: it just didn't It just didn't feel good. And it
Speaker 1: was kind of one of those things, you know, if
Speaker 1: something doesn't feel good to me, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: keep coming back and doing it. And so I started
Speaker 1: thinking about it like yeah, it was like you know,
Speaker 1: he was like staying and then and then at the
Speaker 1: end of the game, you be like, go take this class,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what, like no, no, you know so
Speaker 1: and so at the end of that year, I had
Speaker 1: a choice to me and really, after being that close
Speaker 1: to the Super Bowl, I was like I was fired up,
Speaker 1: and you know, come thing, I'm getting the best shape
Speaker 1: of my life again. I'm gonna finish my career at
Speaker 1: private pattern of the two or three years in the system.
Speaker 1: You know, I had my mind right, and then I
Speaker 1: had a text message from Bill Parcels, and you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of was like I thought he would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: go for it. And his response when I when I
Speaker 1: shared my excitement, was don't chase this thing too long.
Speaker 1: You know you can you can contribute in other ways.
Speaker 1: And that kind of it hit me like a like
Speaker 1: a brick and it got me starting starting to think
Speaker 1: about things. That's not what you wanted to hear, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not what I wanted to hear. It's not
Speaker 1: what I expected to hear. But it woke me up.
Speaker 1: It definitely woke me up, and within a week I
Speaker 1: called Coach Harbor and said, you know, thank you for
Speaker 1: this opportunity, but I think I'm done. I'm ready to
Speaker 1: move on and do something different. Ricky. You've seen you
Speaker 1: see at peace with your life, with how your life
Speaker 1: turned out. You did what you wanted to do. You
Speaker 1: played in the NFL, you rush for over ten thousand yards,
Speaker 1: You've had success, but you seem at peace. You seem
Speaker 1: more at peace with your life now that I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure that you were ever at peace for the
Speaker 1: NFL like you are with your life now. Correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. Well, I've think towards my second stint
Speaker 1: in Miami, I really found a sweet spot where I've
Speaker 1: been through the ups and downs with the fans and
Speaker 1: the team, and they'd accepted me and I was being
Speaker 1: more myself. I felt like I found a sweet spot
Speaker 1: at the end of my career in Miami. But definitely
Speaker 1: I think the fact that I started building my life
Speaker 1: after football while I was still playing. I think of
Speaker 1: that first retirement was like my dry run where I
Speaker 1: got to find out what I was truly passionate about.
Speaker 1: And I started doing those things in the off season
Speaker 1: and in my off time. And so when I retired
Speaker 1: that second time, I was ready. You know, I had
Speaker 1: built a container of a new life for myself, and
Speaker 1: I just continued to stay on that track. And I
Speaker 1: do feel I do feel great for where I am
Speaker 1: in my life right now, and I feel very fortunate
Speaker 1: for my experiences. And then I get opportunities to have
Speaker 1: conversations I mean, again, one of my one of my heroes,
Speaker 1: and I didn't I don't mean this around. I didn't
Speaker 1: appreciate that this was an amazing conversation. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel very fortunate to be able to share this, to
Speaker 1: be able to share this time with you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Let me ask your question before we go, did you
Speaker 1: have you did you ever play an NFL game high?
Speaker 1: Because Marshawn Lynch said, you know, he had to take
Speaker 1: him a shot of yat before he hit the field
Speaker 1: and then he knew if everything gonna be okay. But
Speaker 1: you never played the game high. I didn't even practice high.
Speaker 1: I was more just after work, just like going at
Speaker 1: all press yes, yes, let it go, get up and
Speaker 1: do it again, and that was that was my thing.
Speaker 1: So as one of the best, have the have you
Speaker 1: spoken to the NFL because you see you see now
Speaker 1: they've relaxed some of the standards. The amount of nanogram
Speaker 1: that that senior system now is not the same. You
Speaker 1: might have been able to be able to smoke it.
Speaker 1: I would have been cleaned. I would have been cleared
Speaker 1: if they have those saint standards. You would not be
Speaker 1: talking about right now. I would be pretending I never suppoke.
Speaker 1: So it gets what you would not. You would not
Speaker 1: be the yogi. You would not be in an the
Speaker 1: astrologer that you are right now. So, as you said,
Speaker 1: a lot of things happened for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: and it puts you on a path to where you
Speaker 1: are now. That had the testing been what it is now,
Speaker 1: there's no way to do. I wouldn't be being exactly.
Speaker 1: I could be a different RICKI. Yes, Ricky, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Brou I appreciate you coming home all the best in
Speaker 1: your life. Your podcast continued success. Bro I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. Sharing all my life, running all my life, sacrifice,
Speaker 1: hustle back price. One slice got the throne. The dice
Speaker 1: swa all my life. I've been running all my life,
Speaker 1: all my life, running all my life, sacrifice, hustle back
Speaker 1: prices one slice. I have to bowling dice to swallow
Speaker 1: all my life. I've been running all my life