|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Homebody CNNSI.com visits Ricky Williams
Updated: Wednesday December 27, 2000 11:59 AM
While his New Orleans Saints prepare for the playoffs, running back Ricky Williams will be watching from the sidelines following a serious ankle injury in Week 10. CNNSI.com's Josie Karp had a chance to visit with Williams at his home and get some insight on the team's season. Ricky Williams: This is my little office area/trophy room. This is my fan mail I need to get to, part of it. Josie Karp: Do you make time to do that with regularity? Williams: Yeah, I take about an hour a week and get as much done as I can. Karp: Do you ever have football nightmares like you wake up and the team has said you're not any good, and we're sending you to Cincinnati? Williams: That a nightmare? I don't know. I'm the kind of person that likes change. Karp: Do you want to leave? Williams: No, I like it here. Got this big house. Tough to sell. I like my teammates, the coaching staff. Everything is going well. I don't want to go anywhere. Karp: You feel more comfortable in this city?
Williams: Now I embrace the fact that I wake up every morning, go to work and come home in the afternoon commute. Just like someone who's a mailman. There's more flow and rhythm in my life now. Karp: How often have you been late this year? Williams: I haven't been late this year. We had a discrepancy, the new coach [Jim Haslett] and I, about treatment but we handled it. He heard a lot of bad stuff about me as far as I don't care and I just show up whenever I want to. And I think now he understands me and we're both on the same page and we get along well. Karp: How long did that take? Williams: I started to see right after the whole fiasco with my knee and whether I was going to play or not. That was the Atlanta game and the fact that he was stressed that I wasn't being really straight with him about my injury.
Karp: Then you had a big warm fuzzy moment? Williams: Kind of. It was like that moment where I wasn't talking to him and he wasn't talking to me. Then I had three touchdowns and we're walking off the field and he hit me on the shoulder and said, 'Good game,' you know. Karp: Do you recall when you had the injury what went through your mind? Williams: I thought I sprained my ankle again. I was pissed off. It's going to be four weeks. It's going to suck. And then I started walking around waiting for it to go away so I could go back in the game. It didn't go away and all of a sudden I couldn't put any weight on it. The doctor came back and said, "You fractured it and you'll be out six to eight weeks." I kind of felt like my eye was going to water, but I'm not going to cry. Then Haslett comes up to me and says, "You're going to be okay. We'll have you back." And I was like sniff, it's fractured and he's like what? You're going to be okay and then felt better. Karp A couple of tears? Williams: More than a couple. The good thing about getting hurt is I can't really mess anything up now. I had a good year and then I got hurt. I can't fumble. I can't make us lose a game. I feel positive I can end on a good note. Karp: And people can appreciate you and like you? Williams: Exactly because it's all how you end because the season is over. Then you have six months until you're back again. How you end the season is how you're going to be treated in the off-season. If I never played a snap the rest of the year, I'd have a pretty good off-season compared to last year of course. Karp: But why was it so devastating? Williams: Just because I was thinking back to the first day of camp and how hot it was and how hard we worked and how hard I've been working to get where I am. I was having a decent year and it was over with like that. We're in the middle of something very special, we'd won six games in a row and it just hurt. Karp: You were miserable to be around last year? Williams: Are you asking me or telling me? Karp: I'm asking. Didn't you hear my voice go up at the end? Williams: Kind of iffy. I guess I am or was miserable last year. It was kind of weird because being on the inside looking out I felt like we had to struggle every week to win a game. We were a team that was getting better every week. But once I got hurt I was on the outside looking in and I realized how good we are. I was out there busting my butt you know, on one leg and a dislocated elbow and I felt I was doing more than what I owed to the team or the city and no one seemed to appreciate it. I mean running yards aren't production by me. It's the offensive line. It's the offensive coordinator calling the game. It's the defense keeping us on the field and it's me hitting the holes like I'm supposed to do. It's all people doing their jobs
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
