Run Ricky Run

I've finally gotten around to watching some of ESPN's acclaimed '30-for-30' series of short films about a wide variety of sports people and memorable incidents from across the last 30 years.

'Run, Ricky, Run' focused on Dolphins running back Ricky Williams, and his controversial years as a professional player in the NFL. Williams apparently cut his own career short after the 2004 season when allegations of his marijuana usage surfaced in the media, before beginning a year's sabbatical of traveling the world, introspection and beginning training as a holistic healer.

I'm guessing like many fans, my knowledge of Williams from that time was largely if not completely shaped by his over-simplified portrayal in the media as a 'drug user', and a mercenary who had bailed out on a well-paid contract to suit his own ends.

This documentary instead showed us the gentle and very likable man whose absence from the league had been driven by a need for a period of recovery and inner discovery that must be largely absent from within the ranks of his chosen profession.

The fact that this was an ESPN production is fairly incredible, given that the vast majority of the clips used from their own programming made them look like the Fox News of sportscasting; an assortment of panelists and 'analysts' ridiculing and criticising his actions at almost every turn.

Particularly unbearable was listening to the clip of Joe Theismann slamming the Canadian league side Toronto Argonauts when they signed him to a contract in 2006:

'"I don't ever want to be mentioned in the same breath as Ricky Williams as a football player. He's a disgrace to the game. The man doesn't deserve to play football. He should go on with his life and treat his drug addictions or go do whatever he wants to do. He's been suspended from the National Football League on multiple occasions. Doesn't anybody have any class anywhere? For gosh sakes, let the kid go do what he wants to do. He doesn't want to play football."'

Theismann is already on my ones-to-avoid list thanks to his generally terrible in-game analysis and sense of smug self-righteousness whenever he opens his mouth. Indeed, a brief investigation into his background reveals his son's own troubles with drug problems.

All this was in stark contrast to the softly-spoken Williams, often given to great moments of philosophical clarity and openness despite a troubled history of familial abuse and diagnosed social anxiety disorder.

The film carefully exposed the pressures of fame and fortune, the hypocrisy and savagery of the sports media and the sheer inner strength of Williams in being so open to having such an intimate documentary about his life being produced, and his own admitted imperfections.

It's well worth digging a copy out if you can find it. The world would be a better place if it were filled with less people like Joe Theismann and more like Ricky Williams.