A Quote by Ricky Williams

I led the NFL in attempts the past two years and they really didn’t go out and get a quarterback to help me so I knew it’s going to be all on me again. I could see my mortality as a football player, that I’m not going to be able to do this much longer. It just became obvious to me that playing football for me is not going to be fun, not something I’m going to enjoy and it’s time for me to do something different.
I stopped playing football because I'd done as much as I could. I needed something which was going to excite me as much as football had excited me.
We all have unfair situations and things we don't like. You can get bitter, discouraged and sour, or you can see it as fertilizer and say, “ This difficulty is not going to defeat me; it's going to promote me. It's not going to hinder me; it's going to help me.” Don't just go through it, grow through it.
I always knew that my identity wasn't in football. It wasn't in baseball. I knew it's always been in Christ and just my upbringing has always led me to have a tremendous faith that God was going to see me through and he would not give me too much that I couldn't bear.
I have great respect for Greg Knapp, who was my quarterbacks coach in Denver for three years. He taught me so much about playing quarterback in the NFL and made me a better football player.
I get to do something that millions of people across the world are going to see and enjoy and have fun with. People I'm never going to meet, people I'm never going to see, but when they finish their job tonight, they're going to be playing one of my games and that makes me feel good.
My dad told me, 'If you're going to go out there and play baseball, or you're going to play basketball or football, work hard at it no matter what. I want you to have fun with your buddies, but you have to put in the time because this is your craft.' He didn't just want me to be good. He pushed me to that next level.
I just haven't really had a chance to allow to sink in. I'm sure there is going to come a time when reality is going to hit me and I'm going to know that it's going to be a while before I help my teammates, and that's going to be hard for me.
What really matters is the work. And what matters to me is doing the work. I'm not looking at the back end: "What am I going to get out of this? What's going to be the reward?" I'm just looking at the work, the pleasure of being able to do the work. And that's what the fun is: To climb up the mountain is the fun, not standing at the top. There's nowhere to go. But climbing up, that struggle, that to me is where the fun is. That to me is the thrill. But once that's over, that's kind of it. I don't look too much beyond that.
Xavier McDaniel made me respect him. I thought I could do anything I wanted to. He grabbed me one time and almost choked me out. He said, 'You're going to do this. You're going to go get coffee. You're going to go get doughnuts.' It's a game of respect.
Faith is the most important thing in the world to me. It's the greatest strength I've had. It's helped me get through the hard times. You're not going to win every one of your football games. I've always said I'm not going to make football my god. A lot of coaches put so much into coaching football games that they have nothing left.
It's crazy. I don't know how I'm not dead. People think I'm going to get punched in the face: "Something terrible is going to happen to you. You're going to get killed." That's not what's going to kill me. The show is going to kill me. The work is going to kill me. Once I'm on the street, I'm not worried about that.
My first experience with football was not very good because I didn't plan on playing football. I was just playing hookie one day and I was a sophomore and decided not to go to class. And the principal - normally he does his rounds and I thought I had him down pretty good where he was going to be - he sort of walked up behind me and scared me. He noticed I could run real fast. So that's how I got introduced to football.
We are a religious family. My mum still goes to church every Sunday. There was a time when I was younger when I started getting games on a Sunday, so it came down to a choice between going to church and playing football. I think my mum knew what I really loved, and she did not stop me from going to football.
Obviously, I'm going to go out there and want to win. Don't get me wrong. But I'm not going to not have fun or not enjoy myself at the same time.
Anyone who buys a ticket can just go in there, and I don't like everyone, so I always see concerts as like, I'm going to get punched, I'm going to get elbowed, I'm going to get stepped on, get spilled on, someone's going to hit me with their body odor or something.
I've just stopped worrying about what the game plan looks like, how many targets am I going to have in a game, all of the stuff that would distract me when having fun out there on the football field. It's allowed me to be less stressed and enjoy my teammates more and go out there with a loose mentality and have more fun.
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