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Williams owed much more to fans than peers

Sports commentary

Richard Whitrock

When Miami Dolphins running back Ricky Williams suddenly retired, the sports world collectively dropped its jaw in disbelief. Though a player retiring in his prime isn't unheard of, the move started a ripple that became a tsunami of endless opinion and speculation in the sports talk circles. From coast to coast, both hosts and callers in radio and TV programs sounded their primal yawps of outrage.

"He owed it to his teammates and organization to give better notice!" or, "He can retire whenever he wants!"

The cornucopia of contradictions and confusions that flooded forth from the conch shell of radio and spilled onto the page of various sports' columns was both overwhelming and, thus far, inadequate. In all the finger-pointing, nobody quite touched the full truth.

True, Williams left his teammates in the lurch. True, he left the Dolphins organization in the sewer without a ladder or rope with his timing, waiting until after the draft and all comparable free-agent replacements had already found other homes to announce his decision. True, he owed them more respect; but they are secondary casualties.

He owed it to me. He owed it to every citizen of Miami, every UT student who yelled support for him, every kid in history who played but didn't have the talent to make it in the pros, every armchair quarterback and casual fan in America not to retire when he did.

The truth is that Williams got rich and famous playing a game -- because it's a game we like to watch. It's wonderful that athletes get paid as much as they do because it makes it possible for people like me to watch them reach untold heights of greatness, making life just a little bit better for those of us who could never do it. 

Williams has deprived us of the opportunity to share in the greatness that he was capable of touching, and that is the true shame of his retirement. Who knows what records he could have broken? 

Williams made millions of dollars not only because he is good now or was good in the past, but because of how good he could have become. 

He stole from all of us, stole our time and money and robbed us of sharing his future by retiring. He should be ashamed.
 

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