Ricky Williams

Not being a sports fan, sports stories generally mystify and bore me. Every once in a while, though, I run across something special. This time, it's Les Carpenter's thoughtful piece on Ricky Williams for Yahoo! Sports. (I'm as shocked as you are that a Yahoo!-linked piece is worth reading.)

Williams is almost a decade older than most of his Baltimore Ravens teammates, and the age difference tells. Nevertheless, he still loves the game, so being the resident team loner isn't the burden you might think it is.

On another team, one with greater expectations for him, he might be uncomfortable. But the Ravens’ locker room is always carefree and Harbaugh has a boyish enthusiasm. Everybody seems secure. The coaches don’t yell much. And that fits Williams at this point in his life. Here he is content to fade into the background.

“I do feel like a loner but I think it’s because I look at things differently than other people,” he says. “There’s a quote out of Carl Jung’s autobiography and … he’s talking about when he was a kid and he saw a pattern when he was a kid of aloneness and separateness because he sees things that most people don’t and he wants to talk about them, but most people don’t.

“And so I kind of feel like that. When you look at the world like that, especially as a football player, chances are you aren’t going to find a lot of people to relate to.”

I love the idea that a self-described loner can carve out a niche for himself in as extravagantly extroverted a career as pro football. It gives introverts everywhere a boost to know that such a thing is possible.

I wish Williams all the best in his football career and in his post-football life, whenever that starts.

And it's a great pleasure to read pieces as well-written as this one, so thanks to you, Mr. Carpenter.