Ricky Williams has never stayed in one place long, and that's not a comment about his speed on the football field. Whether popping in and out of Davie in a puff of smoke, jetting off to Australia, or fleeing personal entanglements as if they were 300-pound tackles, Ricky has long been one of the NFL's more mobile enigmas.
His latest zig zag is a new, formerly uncharacteristic openness with the media. Some of it can be chalked up to a comfort level achieved by piecing together a steadier life for himself, giving up pot and no longer finding himself on the business end of an absurdly indignant media who takes his very existance as an insult.
The rest is probably because he still owes the Dolphins $8 million dollars and might resort to a reality show to make himself more marketable after football. After all, he's got respectable career plans in place, but 8 million dollars is a heck of a lot of nights giving rubdowns on the side.
Juma Entertainment and Williams' representatives have been in preliminary talks about a potential reality show. Juma, founded in 2005, has produced a variety of reality shows, including ABC's"The Superstars" and VH1's "Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch."
"We're talking with Ricky Williams, who we think is just a terrific character," Juma Entertainment founder Robert Horowitz told SportsBusinessDaily.com in an interview posted Wednesday, "and trying to come up with the right idea for him."
We might have guessed that's where this was headed. Though Ricky negotiated his last contract himself, he shortly hired flashy agent Drew Rosenhaus, funded and approved the intimate and critically acclaimed ESPN doc "Run Ricky Run," and opened up a Twitter account where he dispenses life advice, interacts with fans, and invites the public to his Wednesday meditations.
Though the Dolphins refer to the $8 million as a "private matter," which we've always taken to mean "we know we'll never get it back, so we plan to keep running Ricky Williams until his legs fall off," Ricky doesn't exactly figure to retire automatically set for life -- and if "Run Ricky Run" proved anything, it's that the public just can't get enough of Ricky Williams.
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And this time, they aren't trying to stone him, which probably won't last if Juma does to Williams what they've done to Chad Ochocinco. "Dancing With the Stars" was a delightful showcase for a charming wide receiver, but a desperatation-tinged dating show on VH1 isn't exactly leaving anyone wanting more 85. The catch for Ricky is to find something compelling but not at all bordering on circus.
In other words, we'd rather watch Ricky massage people for an hour in a dimly-lit room than see him drag himself down the path the media already took him. If the words "Miami Social," "Ricky of Love," or "Hulk Hogan" come up, even just once, here's hoping he changes direction as quickly as he does on Sundays, and always has in the past.
