Phinfan31
☠️ Banned ☠️
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2003
- Messages
- 1,948
- Reaction score
- 126
I want to talk about an old, and perhaps one of the most controversial Miami Dolphins in our teams history.
Before any haters assault his character in this thread - understand that I have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. If you are attacking him (the man off the field), then please be delicate over the subject of his mental illness and don't pretend you know what people like us go through. I welcome ANY questions about it though, and am happy to answer if you're sincere and curious.
Anyways...its been a little over a decade since he up and left the Miami Dolphins. It was one of the most disappointing moments in my life as a Miami Dolphins fan...and at the time I held judgments about him along with the rest of the nation.
But several years later...I began to understand the man. Not the player. I started to get to know the real person that is Ricky Williams (which I think us football fans often forget to do) ...and I perfectly understood his decision. I welcomed him back to the team despite all the repeated failed drug tests (even after he came back)...because I can personally relate to using marijuana for medication (for SAD) ...as I did it all through out high school as a means of escaping my social life, or lack there of.
I wanted to start this thread because its been years since we've had a discussion about him, and I wanted to know how fans perceive him now - after its all been said and done and in the history books? Do you guys feel differently about it all in hindsight like me?
Another reason I wanted to discuss this is because I'm meeting him this summer. I'm going to spend 4-5 days in a camp with him for mental illness. I look forward to being able to talk to him about his career and thoughts/feelings about it all during this process. Hopefully I get that opportunity...obviously the camp is not for talking football...but I will sneak it in
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I bet many of you guys have never seen these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObgsxoNWVfE --- (NEVER aired on national TV - about his illness)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/usof/the-truth-cabin?ref=nav_search --- (NEVER aired - a look inside the man - skip the first few min. where the journalist is asking for donations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OynqAeIpHEI --- "Run Ricky Run" made by the same journalist who tried to do the above failed kickstarter^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKO0Ihnys84 --- "A Football Life" - NFL Networks documentary
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So what do you guys think? Are you able to put yourself in his shoes now? Have you forgiven him as I have?
-Did anyone know that he didn't accept a big contract as a rookie? He didn't believe in it...he thought wasn't "worthy" (this should have been a RED FLAG to doctors - because this is a very common feeling among people with SAD) ...he made his contract completely incentive based - and he had to perform better than every single RB in NFL history (except for 2 men) in order to make big money in his first contract. ------there is nothing more indicative of his character than this. No player has ever done that!? Amazing and inspirational.
He truly is an amazing person. I am so proud to have him as a Miami Dolphin - as a player (#26 or 28 all-time leading rusher?), and as a person - a revolutionary as far as I'm concerned. He stood for everything that is wrong with our national media...our worshiping of materialistic things, of money/fame...and he left it all because of the pressures and expectations that people had of him, and because he wanted to find out WHO he really was...instead of what people expected him to be. I can't think of many people who have ever done what he did...in Sports, Hollywood, Politics...nobody has gone against the system as he did.
Needless to say...I'm really looking forward to this opportunity to meet him. If anybody has anything they would like me to ask him I'll revisit this thread before I go this summer. It will be a few months before you guys hear back...but I would absolutely love to share my experience with you guys.
Aloha
-Phinfan31
Before any haters assault his character in this thread - understand that I have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. If you are attacking him (the man off the field), then please be delicate over the subject of his mental illness and don't pretend you know what people like us go through. I welcome ANY questions about it though, and am happy to answer if you're sincere and curious.
Anyways...its been a little over a decade since he up and left the Miami Dolphins. It was one of the most disappointing moments in my life as a Miami Dolphins fan...and at the time I held judgments about him along with the rest of the nation.
But several years later...I began to understand the man. Not the player. I started to get to know the real person that is Ricky Williams (which I think us football fans often forget to do) ...and I perfectly understood his decision. I welcomed him back to the team despite all the repeated failed drug tests (even after he came back)...because I can personally relate to using marijuana for medication (for SAD) ...as I did it all through out high school as a means of escaping my social life, or lack there of.
I wanted to start this thread because its been years since we've had a discussion about him, and I wanted to know how fans perceive him now - after its all been said and done and in the history books? Do you guys feel differently about it all in hindsight like me?
Another reason I wanted to discuss this is because I'm meeting him this summer. I'm going to spend 4-5 days in a camp with him for mental illness. I look forward to being able to talk to him about his career and thoughts/feelings about it all during this process. Hopefully I get that opportunity...obviously the camp is not for talking football...but I will sneak it in
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I bet many of you guys have never seen these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObgsxoNWVfE --- (NEVER aired on national TV - about his illness)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/usof/the-truth-cabin?ref=nav_search --- (NEVER aired - a look inside the man - skip the first few min. where the journalist is asking for donations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OynqAeIpHEI --- "Run Ricky Run" made by the same journalist who tried to do the above failed kickstarter^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKO0Ihnys84 --- "A Football Life" - NFL Networks documentary
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what do you guys think? Are you able to put yourself in his shoes now? Have you forgiven him as I have?
-Did anyone know that he didn't accept a big contract as a rookie? He didn't believe in it...he thought wasn't "worthy" (this should have been a RED FLAG to doctors - because this is a very common feeling among people with SAD) ...he made his contract completely incentive based - and he had to perform better than every single RB in NFL history (except for 2 men) in order to make big money in his first contract. ------there is nothing more indicative of his character than this. No player has ever done that!? Amazing and inspirational.
He truly is an amazing person. I am so proud to have him as a Miami Dolphin - as a player (#26 or 28 all-time leading rusher?), and as a person - a revolutionary as far as I'm concerned. He stood for everything that is wrong with our national media...our worshiping of materialistic things, of money/fame...and he left it all because of the pressures and expectations that people had of him, and because he wanted to find out WHO he really was...instead of what people expected him to be. I can't think of many people who have ever done what he did...in Sports, Hollywood, Politics...nobody has gone against the system as he did.
Needless to say...I'm really looking forward to this opportunity to meet him. If anybody has anything they would like me to ask him I'll revisit this thread before I go this summer. It will be a few months before you guys hear back...but I would absolutely love to share my experience with you guys.
Aloha
-Phinfan31
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