DON'T HATE HIM 'CAUSE HE'S WEIRD

Ricky Williams Deserves A Chance ... Would-Be Argonaut Is
Here And Waiting

We're all just going to have to be a little open-minded here.

Errick Lynne (Ricky) Williams, it's certain, would be one of the most
idiosyncratic sports personalities to come through this town since the
thoroughly unusual Carl Brewer.

Brewer was himself a brilliant and brooding young athlete -- some just
dismissed him as a nut -- who stunned one and all when he bolted from
the Maple Leafs on the eve of the NHL season more than 40 years ago,
and later emerged to resume his career in Finland, of all places.

Now it's Williams' turn to play Napoleon on Elba, reconstructing his
career far from the glorious stage most believe he was born to occupy.

The Argonauts have a contractual deal in principle with
Williams.

Now it's up to the Miami Dolphins to give their blessing to this
startling marriage.

But other than the fact Williams is a terrific running back and 29
years old, there is little that can be said with certitude about him.

He is a little bit of everything; an intellectual, a mystic, an
apprentice holistic healer, a father, a twin, a hippie, a lost soul
searching for answers and a person simply seeking to experience every
possible stimulus life offers, from addiction to pain to religion to
freedom.

You can either embrace that complexity, or reject it.

Or, you can simply give the man an opportunity to prove
himself.

If he messes up from there, well, he can be judged on
that.

And he won't have a great deal of wiggle room.

It is, after all, important not to be naive while trying to be
open-minded, and equally important not to reward those who repeatedly
choose to break the rules ahead of others who abide by those same rules.

Williams has erred sensationally before, and more than
once.

Moreover, when pressed on issues such as walking out on the Dolphins
two years ago and his past penchant for smoking marijuana, he has
given evasive, often contradictory answers.

Here's an example.

When Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes fame interviewed Williams while he was
studying the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda in the fall of 2004
after quitting the NFL at the age of 27, Williams told Wallace that he
left the NFL because the "money is what made me miserable."

"It's blood money as far as I'm concerned," he said.

But when Wallace challenged him on the statement, Williams
acknowledged it wasn't true at all.

"Here's what happened, okay?" he said. "The thing that I had the most
trouble with was that after ... after you fail, your, your third
(drug) 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."

On four occasions, he has broken NFL substance abuse rules, and if he
becomes an Argo, he will still be subject to 10 tests per month.

So is he Craig MacTavish, the much-admired head coach of the Edmonton
Oilers who rebounded from committing a serious crime early in his
hockey career to become a role model in the hockey world?

Or is he just a football version of the late Steve Howe, a career
screw-up?

From all accounts, Williams sounds like an intelligent, intriguing
person, one willing to look at life a little differently, even if it
means living in a tent in an Australian camp for $7 a day, posing in a
wedding dress as the bride to Mike Ditka's groom on the cover of
Sports Illustrated or naming his daughter Marley after Jamaican reggae
star Bob Marley, his personal hero.

Wait until he finds out Marley's son Rohan once played in the CFL with
the Ottawa Rough Riders.

Being different, we can all agree, is no crime. And yes, Williams is
different.

He's already been in the city a week along with his uber-agent, Leigh
Steinberg, and one can imagine the biggest concern the Dolphins have
going into this Memorial Day weekend in the U.S. is that Williams
might like Canada too much and decide not to return to the NFL at all.

This much is clear. I don't know Williams, and I don't know his
experience growing up in San Diego as a talented African American in a
family with very young parents who divorced when he was only 6.

He is a product of that experience and the others that have followed
at the University of Texas and beyond, and it seems that unless we can
fully understand all that brought him to this point today, its seems
unreasonable not to at least initially embrace him as a person with
the potential to make a very positive impact on this city.

Having seen enough cliches and conformity in the often-sanitized world
of pro sports, why sneer when something different this way comes?