Ricky Williams Returns

If you were watching the Miami Dolphins play the New York Jets this afternoon, you did not see Dolphins superstar running back Ricky Williams. He's sitting out a four-game suspension for failing NFL drug tests. Many of you who don't follow football have heard of Ricky Williams because last year he did something that all star athletes never do: At the peak of his earning power, he simply walked out on his team, and his $5 million salary. And that unexpected walkout doomed the Dolphins' season. But this season, Ricky is back.

Why? Why did he return to football? Correspondent Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes went to Miami to find out. But first, take a look at Ricky Williams a year ago.

"Well," he said, "my whole thing in life is, I just want freedom. And I thought that money would give me that freedom. I was wrong, of course, but …"

Why was he wrong?

"Because, especially when you're 21 and you're given as much money as I was given ..."

How much was he given?

"When I was 21, I received my first check," Williams replied. "It was 3.6."

Million?

"That was before taxes," Williams said. "After, it was like 2 … 2.4 … It bound me more than it freed me because now I had more things to worry about. I had more people asking for money. I thought I had to buy a house and nice cars and different things that people with money are supposed to do."

He said he did not find that satisfying.

"It just seemed to create more problems," Williams said.

And he has said before: "It's blood money as far as I'm concerned. The money is what made me miserable. I want to be free of that stress." When Wallace challenged him on that statement, Williams agreed that it was "bull----."

The real reason he left, he told 60 Minutes, was to avoid the public humiliation over news that he had just failed a drug test, his third failed drug test.

"All right," Williams said. "Here's what happened, OK? The thing that I had the most trouble with was that after — after you fail your, your third test then it becomes public knowledge that, that you failed the test. And that's the one thing that I couldn't deal with at the time: People knowing that I smoke marijuana."

The problem with failing his third NFL drug test was that it would be made public.

"That was my biggest fear in my whole entire life," the athlete responded. "I was scared to death of that."

So, rather than face the music and the media about his failed drug test, he quit football and ran away, far, far away, to Australia, where he lived in a tent community that cost him just $7 a day.

"In my tent," he said, "I had about 30 books, and every morning I'd wake up about 5 in the morning, and I'd take my flashlight and I'd read for a couple of hours."

Books about what?

"Everything from nutrition to — to Buddhism to Jesus, to try to figure out, you know, what am I? What am I? So I just kept reading and reading. And couldn't figure out what I was, but I learned a lot."

It was there he learned about that ancient healing science from India called Ayurveda.

"It's using nature to heal yourself," he says, "to put yourself in balance … It's a journey that people spend their whole lives on."

What's balance?

"To talk about balance, it's easier to talk about what's out of balance," Williams said. "And I think anytime that you have any disease, and disease meaning lack of ease, lack of flow … dis-ease. So any time there's disease, you're out of balance, whether it's jealousy, anger, greed, anxiety, fear."

And Williams has, he believes, experience with all of the above.

"I've had a little bit of all of it, yeah," he says. "Most people have."

So last fall, a year ago, he enrolled at the California College of Ayurveda. Freed from the structured life of the NFL, he immersed himself in the search for his soul.

"Playing in the National Football League, you're told, you know, where to be, when to be there, what to wear, how to be there," Williams says. "Being able to step away from that, I have an opportunity to look deeper into myself and look for what's real."

Massage, 60 Minutes learned, was just part of his training to become a holistic masseur. Ayurvetic healing techniques also include aroma therapy, music, and special foods. And while he thoroughly enjoyed his sublime studies, he remained unapologetic for deserting his teammates and the fans, and destroying their season.

"When would it have been OK for me to stop playing football?" Williams says. "When my knees went out? When my shoulders went out? When I had too many concussions? When is it OK? … I'm just curious. I'm just curious, because I don't understand. When is it OK to not play football anymore?"

A year ago, Wallace asked Williams this: "Do you care about what people think who are looking in … right now?"

And Williams said, "No."

Then Wallace read to him an excerpt of a column written by Paul Attner of The Sporting News: "Ricky's always been one of the most selfish, unpredictable, purposely bizarre and more-than-slightly-off-kilter athletes. He doesn't care how his behavior might affect anyone around him. It has always been about Ricky."

Wallace asked Williams for his reaction to that.

Said Williams: "Half of it's accurate. But how could I expect him, if I don't even know who he is, to know anything really about me?"

After reading Attner's quote aloud himself, the athlete added: "He got the name right. No, I mean, I am unpredictable, but who's — what is supposed to be predictable?"

Wallace presented a quote from another columnist: "To some, Williams is a selfish quitter. To others, he's a hero who took his job and shoved it, leaving a brutal game before it brutalized him. To close friends, Williams is a deep-thinking free spirit who despised the stereotypes that came with football, fame and fortune."

Williams' reaction: "That's a little more accurate, yeah."

So who is William's hero, if any?

"I'd say Bob Marley, probably," he says.

Bob Marley, the legendary reggae star from Jamaica, inspired Williams to wear dreadlocks for years, and he and his hero have something else in common: "He smoked a lot of marijuana, yeah ... I have done the same."

"Could you pass an NFL drug test today?" Wallace asked him last December, and Williams said, "No."

The exchange continued:

Wallace: "So you still smoke marijuana?"

Williams: "Uh-huh."

Wallace: "Anything worse than that?"

Williams: "Worse? What do you mean by worse?"

Wallace: "More addictive, more dangerous, conceivably?"

Williams: "Sometimes I have sweets. Sugar."

Wallace: "Oh, yeah, I see."

Williams: "Sometimes I'll have a glass of wine. But that's about it."

Well, he needed a big glass of it last January because during his studies, he was shocked by some unexpected news: According to the fine print in his contract, it turned out he actually owed the Dolphins $8.6 million for leaving before his contract was up. So, suddenly, he found himself deep in debt with only one way out.

A pre-season touchdown marked Ricky's return to the Dolphins. 60 Minutes flew down to Miami to see how he was doing. He didn't want to sit down one on one. Instead, 60 Minutes went to his weekly press conference, where Wallace showed him the tape of a bet they made last year:

Wallace: "I'll make you a bet."

Williams: "What?"

Wallace: "You'll play football again."

Williams: "OK. What are we — what's the wager?"

Wallace: "You don't care about money."

Williams: "We can bet dinner, lunch. Why do you think I'll play football again?"

Wallace: "Because I think that you will want to have the freedom that you have now, but you're going to need more money to have the freedom that you now have."

Williams: "That is the reason why."

Wallace: "You came back for money."

Williams: "No, not for money, for FREEDOM. For freedom."

But freedom can be complicated. To get free from his debt to the Dolphins meant he was no longer free from football.

Has he enjoyed giving up his freedom to work under the regulations of the very structured NFL?

Says Williams, "Well, I realized that my concept of freedom at the time was a little bit off, and my concept of freedom now — like, I was sitting at home last night, and I was thinking if there was anywhere in the world that I'd rather be or anything I'd rather be doing, and … there was nothing.

"I've gotten to a point, where I realize that happiness doesn't come from the outside."

Williams says what he discovered in his year away from football was that true freedom comes from within.

"Everything that there is to gain I have inside of myself, and it's nothing that I can get from going anywhere or doing anything," he says. "And the process of coming to work every day and working through whatever — football, whatever life brings me, it just gives me more and more freedom and it strengthens my desire to be free."

Wallace: "You've said that making a new commitment to the Dolphins means that you've surrendered. Surrendered what?"

Williams: "Surrendered my will."

Wallace: "Surrendered your what?"

Williams: "My will. In the team meeting room, there's in big letters in the back. It says… 'Get out of yourself and get into the team.' "

Wallace: "And you said that you love football but that you're not having fun here. What does that mean?"

Williams: "When you look at fun, you know, you look across from fun and you see work. And I think the fun is a result of hard work. So it's not fun by itself. But if you work hard, then you get to the fun."

Wallace: "You look like a happy fellow."

Williams: "Yeah, I do my best … There's nothing not to be happy about."

Wallace: "What about money?"

Williams: "What about money?"

Wallace: "How broke are you?"

Williams: "I have no idea."

Wallace: "What do you mean, you have no idea?"

Williams: "Well, the way I live my life is if I have — if I have a place to stay and I have food on the table, then I'm not broke."

Wallace: "But I understand you're down to 230,000 bucks."

Williams: "I really could not tell you how much."

Wallace: "Doesn't Lee Steinberg, your agent, tell you about that?"

Williams: "No, I don't talk to Lee about money."

Wallace: "You don't talk to your agent about money? What do you talk to your agent about?"

Williams: "Talk about, like, talk a little philosophy. He always sends me books. It's a different kind of relationship."

Sure. His agent is trying to get him a new contract, hoping to erase the $8 million debt. But you can bet that Williams would owe millions more if he walked off again — or failed another drug test. He says he gets tested twice a week, and that he doesn't smoke marijuana any more.

Does he miss it?

"No, no," says Williams.

His teammates (and his fans, for the most part) have welcomed him back. Last year, Williams had told 60 Minutes he saw no need to apologize to them for ruining their season. But when he returned, he was quick to change his mind.

"I was being more understanding of their point of view," he explains. "Not being so selfish … My concept of the truth expands on a daily basis. And my loyalty is to the truth and not to consistency."

And as for paying off the bet he made with Wallace that he would play football again?

"Lunch or dinner," says the athlete. "Well, I have to work, so it'll have to be dinner. I have a job now, so …"