Ricky Williams

[palmspringsbum]

Yoga helps Williams find his karma

By DAVID NAYLOR
Toronto Globe and Mail
30-MAY-06

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario -- Most professional athletes are lured to play by the same kind of bait - a list that includes money, fame, cars and glamorous locales.

But according to Ricky Williams, the thing that moved him to join the Toronto Argonauts is none of these. The thing that moved Williams to join the Canadian Football League team is - wait for it - yoga. Williams plans to teach it several mornings each week in downtown Toronto's Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center before heading off for football practice with his new team.

"Definitely," Williams said. "I wouldn't have come if I didn't have that opportunity."

He's going to teach two to three times a week?

"At least."

CFL players often have sidelines to build additional income. But Williams, who claims money does not motivate him and who once walked out on a multimillion-dollar contract with the Miami Dolphins, is teaching his yoga class for free.

"It's all karma yoga," he said. "Volunteer work."

There is nothing simple or straightforward about the circumstances that led to Williams's stepping on the field as a member of the Argos. Which is perhaps fitting, because there is nothing simple or straightforward about Williams, an athlete who shatters athlete stereotypes every time he opens his mouth.

A conversation with him is far more likely to turn to what produces happiness in the human spirit than to how he gained all those yards as the Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Texas.

Not that he didn't enjoy himself at Texas.

"Did I," he said with a chuckle. "But when I was a kid, I planted a seed to be rich and famous pro athlete and I thought it would be happiness. The flower was ripe when I won the Heisman Trophy. And I didn't have another seed to plant."

Williams's abrupt retirement from the National Football League in 2004 led him to travels in Thailand, India and Australia. He lived not like a millionaire athlete, but like thousands of other 20-somethings who carry their belongings on their backs and set out to discover something about themselves.

And when Williams lived in those backpacker camps in Australia, did the other travelers understand who he was?

"Even if I told them I was a football player, they wouldn't understand what I meant."

So he was anonymous?

"Pretty much," he said. "(Being anonymous) was necessary and it felt like a burden was lifted. It was easier for me to be myself and to know who I was. When you're a pro football player, it's rare to know two people who treat you like a person and it becomes easy to forget who you are."

Among the many things that makes Williams rare is his lack of singular focus, so common in the highest achievers in sports. Ask great athletes why they achieve, and they'll usually talk of ignoring much of what goes on around them to zero in on athletics. Williams is the opposite.

"I've been studying astrology and I've come up with a theory," he said. "There are Venus athletes, Mars athletes and Saturn athletes. A Mars athlete is like an overachiever, they have so much energy and passion and it's raw they will themselves to the top. The Saturn athletes are the ones who are not the most gifted but they just work and work.

"Then there are Venus athletes," he continued. "That's what I am. Those are the ones who have an innate love of sport and the competition of it. They're like artists. For them, it's not about the money and fame. It's about expanding yourself. And I think the more well rounded you are, the better an athlete you are because you need that inspiration. To have that single focus blocks the flow of inspiration."

Among Williams's interests, at least in the past, was marijuana. In 2004, it was a positive test that led to a four-game suspension and preceded his decision to walk away from the NFL. Pot, he said, was how he tried to fill the void in his life at that point.

"When I retired, one of the first things I did was go to California and get a prescription for medicinal marijuana," he said.

How did he get that?

"My medical file for the NFL was like this," he said, separating his thumb and index fingers about four inches apart. "So it wasn't hard. I don't think I've ever told anyone that before."

His most recent positive test this off-season, for an undisclosed substance, landed him a one-year suspension and, ultimately, a trip to Canada.

As has been well publicized by his new employers, Williams, 29, said he doesn't need or use marijuana. And in Toronto, he sees the chance to expand his happiness on a team that seeks to do good, under the guidance of head coach Michael Clemons, who he believes might be the male role model who has been missing from his life.

And be believes he can run into the future without hiding from his past.

"I'm a guy who truly believes in to each his own," Williams said. "I smoked for a couple of years, but I wouldn't necessarily tell someone to smoke because it's obviously illegal and it's a drug. But if a teammate came up to me, I wouldn't berate him, yell at him or tell him he's a bad person. The problem is we always tell people what to do and not look at why they do it."



<font size=-1><center>(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.) </center></font>