Ricky Williams: What it means to be a Longhorn

EDITOR'S NOTE: Texas' legendary publicist and Hall of Fame sports information director Bill Little was the preeminent historian of Texas Athletics and often weighed in with insightful and informative commentaries throughout his career. Little sadly passed away on August 18, but his many stories and legacy will live on forever. With Ricky Williams being honored as a Texas Exes Distinguished Alumnus and for the 25^th Anniversary of his 1998 Heisman Trophy this weekend, here's a wonderful piece he wrote for his book, What It Means To Be A Longhorn, in 2007.

I decided I was going to be a college football player when I was just a kid watching a Notre Dame game on television in San Diego. Something about college football was different from the NFL. It was the idea that you are part of a team, you are part of a university, and you are part of a tradition that is bigger than football.

That is something I connected with when I started looking at Texas. John Mackovic was the head coach, and he was recruiting a lot in California. When I got to Texas, I think there were eight or nine of us from California. When I was looking for schools to attend, I was looking for a chance to go to a big school that would be on television a lot, but also where I would have a chance to start somewhere as a freshman.

When it came down to it, my final choices were USC and Texas. Notre Dame was in the mix, too. I actually took my USC trip on a weekend...it was a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I flew home on Monday, unpacked, repacked, and flew to Austin right after that trip to Los Angeles.

I had never been to Texas, so I was expecting to see tumbleweeds and cowboy boots. I was very surprised when I got to Austin. First of all, it was December 17, and it was 73 degrees. I thought that Austin felt and looked very much like Southern California. The thing that sold me on the city was when we drove out to Coach (Steve) Bernstein's (who had recruited me) house off Bee Cave Road, toward the Texas Hill Country. I was like, "Wow, there's streams and hills and trees and forests," and it was beautiful. So Austin passed the test pretty quickly.

The next thing I experienced was being around the guys on the team. They were really like a family. I saw that if one guy had a car and another guy didn't, it was no problem to let them borrow your car. They really took care of each other, and that caught my attention.

Then, we were walking toward the dining hall, and there were these three humongous guys walking toward me and the coaches introduced me to them. They were Octavious Bishop, Jay Humphrey, and Ben Adams, all redshirt offensive linemen who would be playing with me all four years.

Probably the most important thing was that I saw -- this was before Priest Holmes hurt his knee later in spring training -- was that Priest was going to be the starting tailback, and there was no fullback, really, so I had a great opportunity to win a starting position. I knew Coach Mackovic had a reputation as an offensive genius, so I believed that he'd find ways to get me the ball. A lot of coaches say certain things, but with him, I could tell that he was a man of his word, and if he said that I was going to have a chance to play and get the ball, I could believe him.

So I really liked Austin, I liked the people, and it was a program that was putting itself back on the map. It had a lot of national exposure, so it seemed the perfect place for me, and I felt very grateful that I was open enough to realize that. Bucky Godbolt, my running backs coach, and I hit it off fast and he turned out to be like a big brother and a really strong father figure for me.

One of the highlights of my time at Texas was the lifelong friend I found in John Bianco, who worked with me and the media. John was instrumental in keeping my image positive, and my attitude was always good when it came to the media.

I actually grew relatively close to Coach Mackovic, and everything was perfect. Texas had the academics, and the program, it was a place where I could fit in, the team was young and they were coming up, and I had a chance to be a part of something big.

When I got to Austin, I went to the T-Room and I saw the pictures on the walls of all of the All-Americans. The tradition and the energy in that room were so strong that I knew it was something I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to be able to put my picture on the wall, to be able to put my name there. A lot of times, our study hall was in the T Room, and every time I was in there I was inspired to be better because of the pictures and all that they represented.

My freshman year, Coach Mackovic was true to his word, and I did get a chance to play. When I first got to Texas, Texas A&M was a powerhouse. They had that "wrecking crew" defense, and they had beaten us five or six years in a row. To hear the guys talk about A&M that first year, especially their defense, you would think that they were superhuman. They were big, fast, strong, hard to beat, and they killed us every year.

Finally, when the end of the season came, we were playing them in College Station, one of the hardest places to play in college football, and they had the number one defense in the country. I was a little bit intimidated. But we had had a great season, and we surprised a lot of people. The winner of the game was going to win the final Southwest Conference championship, so it was a showdown.

It was tough and loud, but in the second quarter I broke a 22-yard touchdown, and things started clicking for us. I think I had 165 yards, and we won, 16-6. In my opinion, that was when the program really started to turn around. From that point on, especially when we played Texas A&M, everyone really turned it up a notch or two. We won three out of the four times we played them and beat them pretty badly twice. It was special for me to be a part of the turning of the tables when we finally started to dominate that series.

In 1997, my junior season, there were rumors floating around that Coach Mackovic was going to be fired after the season because we had a really tough year. I came out publicly and said that if he left, that I was also going to leave. I had led the nation in rushing and scoring, so I had the opportunity to go to the NFL. When I made that statement, I really meant it. I didn't see staying for another year -- with a new coaching staff and all the changes that would come -- when I didn't have to.

The last game of the season, we played A&M, and I hurt my ankle in that game and played the second half at 75 percent, and then 25 percent and we ended up losing the game, 27-16. I had a good game; I wound up with three touchdowns and 185 yards, but we lost. I knew if I had been healthy the whole game, we would have beaten them. It kinda left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn't want to end my career on a game like that.

Even so, after that game, it was probably 80-20 (percentage-wise) that I would leave. When Coach Brown first came and talked to our team, he didn't win me over right away. I thought he was just a slick talker because he is so charismatic and is really good with the way he speaks. Then, I knew I was leaving. It was now 90-10.

I had worn my hair in dreadlocks for years, and when I met with him for the first time, he asked me if I would think about cutting my hair. After that, I think it was like 99 percent to one percent to leave. I think he could tell that I was leaving, and we had another meeting. It was then that I shared with him all the things I thought were the problems on the team and the things that I thought could help us be a better team. It was a very good talk. I just laid out everything that I felt...I just put it on the table.

I saw the way he reacted. He was so very receptive, and he really listened. Right away after that meeting, he started to implement some of the suggestions that I had made. I was impressed. Over the next week or so we had lunch, and we talked to each other a little bit more. After getting to know him better and seeing the kind of guy that he was, I was now really impressed.

I guess the final piece came when I went to lunch with a friend of mine and him, and he had Sally (his wife) with him at the Hyde Park Grill. Just to see him with Sally was important. I always have been a guy that judges people by their relationships. To see the two of them that way, I really had a lot of respect for him, not only as a coach, but as a person. I think the next day or the day after that, we had the press conference to announce that I was staying.

I had decided that things were in place for me to remain in school, that this new coach was not going to make my life more difficult, but he was really all about trying to help the program, trying to help me, and trying to help The University take a step forward.

Coming from California, I didn't know a lot about some of Texas's legends. I didn't know much about Earl Campbell when I first came, so I got to meet with him, and I tried to tie myself to the tradition of what Texas Football was all about. And when I won the Doak Walker Award after that 1997 season, I went to Orlando to the awards presentation. All of the guys from different schools were in this restaurant, and I wasn't really hanging out with them, so I just sat down at the Doak Walker table and picked up a pamphlet that described Doak. I soon realized that he was a legend, and he was very representative of what I wanted to be, the All-American person, not just a football player.

I am always very aware of how people react to me. Especially at that time, because I had dreadlocks and had my tongue pierced or something, and a couple of tattoos. When Doak finally walked in, he didn't react at all. He was a really open, very nice, very friendly guy, and we sat and talked all night. He really touched me in a very deep place. Unfortunately, after the award ceremony that year, he was paralyzed in a skiing accident. It was really sad to see such a wonderful person, who had touched so many people's lives, like that. So, I really opened my heart, and I wanted to reach out and touch him and continually thank him for what he represented and what he meant to me.

That's why I asked, after he passed, if I could wear his old number 37 when we played Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl, because it was known as the "house that Doak built."

That game was part of my senior season. When Coach Brown came in, we had been 4-7 the previous year, and no one expected us to do anything. When I decided to come back, there was talk about the Heisman Trophy. Even though our team record wasn't what I wanted, I had a great individual season my junior year, and I wasn't even invited to New York. So, I knew if there was any way I was going to win the Heisman, the team was going to have to help and play, meaning the defense was going to have to do something special. We started out 1-2, lost to the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in UCLA and Kansas State. In the K-State game, I had 48 yards and we got pummeled...we got beat very badly. So, I was kinda down, and I knew it was going to be tough.

But the next five or six weeks, the defense just got stingy, the offense stepped up...Major (quarterback Applewhite) was incredible, Wane (receiver McGarity) played incredibly...everyone stepped up their game, and the team really came together. I say to this day, me winning the Heisman Trophy had nothing to do with me. It was just that the team really rose to the occasion, and we really weren't going to accept losing at all.

It was the first time in my life -- the only time in my life -- that the team was put on my shoulders, and I was allowed to lead, and the team was happy to follow. I attribute that all to the way Coach Brown handled me and handled the team. It was a case of being able to turn a difficult situation into a winning season and further the Longhorns coming back on the map.

I look at my life and all my accomplishments, and the four years that I spent in Austin at The University of Texas were by far the best years of my life. I jokingly say...half serious...that I was born a Longhorn. People say that in Texas, everything is bigger, and I agree. The Longhorns, the fans, the students, the faculty, the staff, they all have a bigger heart.

What it means to be a Longhorn sounds simple, but in the deepest, most positive sense of the word, it's about pride. It's about taking pride in what you do, pride in who you are, and taking pride in how you handle yourself. It is something that I will always cherish and something that no one can take away from me. I always feel my heart feels huge, flowing with pride -- not a negative pride, thinking I'm better than anyone else -- to know that you were a part of something that was bigger than yourself. It's like a family that can never be separated, never be broken up, and something that never, ever can be taken away from you.

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics

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