DAVIE, Fla. - (KRT) - Miami Dolphins tailback Ricky Williams says "it's just hair," but that can't be completely true.
If it were, Williams would never have defied his mother by growing dreadlocks as a teenager. Williams would have gotten a haircut when told by his college coach that a Heisman Trophy wasn't winnable without changing his appearance.
There is one drawback with dreadlocks: Getting your hair yanked in games.
Still, while his athletic gifts helped him become one of the NFL's top running backs, Williams' dreadlocks are his trademark. Not only do they reflect his individuality, Williams also has helped assimilate a once-controversial hairstyle worn predominantly by blacks into mainstream culture.
"I wasn't the first one, but I think I opened the door for a lot of people," Williams said. "If you look at college football and the NFL now, a lot of people are wearing dreadlocks and it's acceptable.
"I'd say 10 years ago, a black person with dreads was probably more intimidating than they are today. People had the wrong idea. I think I showed that (dreads) don't make a person or mean anything."
But in a way, they do.
Just ask Sandy Williams, who was afraid dreadlocks would cause her son to get shunned in the white middle-class neighborhood where they lived. Or University of Texas coach Mack Brown, who had urged Williams and other players to present themselves as if attending a job interview.
"Ricky taught us all something," Brown said. "He gave me a different perspective on people. He taught us all to get past what a person may look like, even if it is a little different. He taught us all that we are never too old to learn."
Until he was 16, Williams wore his hair in a variety of styles.
"He's had everything from braids, a Jeri curl, an S-curl, curled top with shaved sides and bottom, to a totally shaved head," Sandy Williams said. "Ricky started wearing dreads when it was not the popular thing to do."
Wanting to grow his hair longer, Williams said inspiration for the dreadlocks came from the music of Bob Marley, the late Jamaican reggae star who had them. Williams is such a fan that he named his daughter Marley.
"When you can make such good music and have meaning behind it, that's very special and very rare," Williams said. "Bob was very influential in my life because of the fact you could be very good at something and also get a point across and stand for something good. A lot of people just strive to be good at something and not necessarily have anything behind it. At a young age, I could put on his music, relax, listen to it over and over again, and learn something from it."
Sandy Williams, though, wanted to nix her son's new hairstyle after spotting "knots" on Ricky's head when a baseball cap he was wearing got knocked off. Although initially opposed to Ricky growing dreadlocks, Sandy Williams eventually caved in.
"Ricky reminded me I had always taught (my children) to be strong and secure as people and not to rely on what people said or thought to determine who they are and how they should act," said Sandy Williams, who also has two daughters. "After talking with him, I said to myself, `Ricky never talks back to me, he never disrespects me, he doesn't give me trouble, he's a good student. What was my problem?'
"If my biggest issue with Ricky was how he wanted to wear his hair, then I really didn't have an issue."
But just because Sandy Williams accepted them didn't mean those around her felt the same way. When Ricky Williams was the only member of the All-County football team in San Diego with dreadlocks, his mother remembers being assailed with a slew of racially charged insults after player photographs appeared in the newspaper.
"I heard everything from, `Why do you let your son go around looking like a monkey?' to, `Ricky looks like he belongs in the jungle somewhere,"" she said. "There were other comments made to me I wouldn't even repeat."
While his mother received grief, Williams said he was unaware of any problems with his haircut until arriving at the University of Texas.
"When I was in high school, it wasn't a big deal at all," Williams said. "Then I went to Texas and I was like the only one (with dreadlocks). I didn't do it for attention. But because a lot of people in football didn't have dreads, a lot was made of it."
Besides Brown, two of the most influential figures in Longhorns football history advised Williams to ditch the dreads. One of them was retired coach Darrell Royal, whose name graces the stadium where the Longhorns play. The other was Earl Campbell, who Williams admired so much that he embraced the "Little Earl" nickname given to him after breaking the Hall of Fame tailback's freshman rushing record at Texas.
Still, Williams wouldn't budge. As he excelled both on and off the field at Texas, those who initially didn't like his hair had grown to love it. When Williams broke the all-time NCAA rushing record against Texas A&M, dreadlocks were superimposed on images of Royal, Campbell and then-Texas Governor George W. Bush on the stadium's giant video scoreboard.
Several weeks later, Williams won the Heisman Trophy.
Thanks to Williams, current Longhorns tailback Cedric Benson has been spared unnecessary grief about his dreadlocks.
"It's cool that he isn't afraid to be independent and go against the norm," said Benson, who has adopted Williams as his mentor. "It makes him very unique and interesting."
The New Orleans Saints felt the same way. Rather than urging a makeover after making him the fifth overall selection in the 1999 draft, the Saints embraced Williams' look. New Orleans coach Mike Ditka attended an introductory news conference for Williams wearing a dreadlock wig, leading to Saints fans doing the same.
"He could be a clown like that," Williams said of Ditka. "I thought it was great. They had made some (wigs) and I saw a couple in the stands. It was part of the fanfare."
The dreadlocks didn't go unnoticed by opposing defenses. During one of Williams' games with the Saints, New Orleans tackle Kyle Turley returned to the huddle with a dreadlock that had gotten ripped out at the bottom of a pile.
Game officials are allowed to issue a personal foul if judging a player intentionally tackled another by the hair. No penalties were called earlier this season when Williams' hair was pulled by New York Jets linebacker Marvin Jones and Buffalo Bills safety Lawyer Milloy.
"I've got to do whatever I've got to do to bring a guy down," Jones said. "Whether it's hair, legs, arms, it still counts."
New York Giants safety Shaun Williams said his team hasn't conducted any hair-pulling drills in practice, but he also is prepared to snare whatever necessary to stop a red-hot tailback.
"You're trying to grab whatever you can," Shaun Williams said while smiling. "I'm not looking to grab anybody's hair. But if it comes between his hair and a touchdown, I have to grab it. I hope he understands."
Ricky Williams isn't the only running back having to deal with teams locking onto dreads. Indianapolis' Edgerrin James trimmed his after getting tackled by the hair in the season opener against Cleveland.
"I think it's wrong," said Dolphins backup linebacker Tommy Hendricks, who also has dreadlocks sticking out of his helmet. "It's almost like pulling on a facemask. You're pulling on someone's head to get them down. That could result in an injury."
Williams, though, isn't pulling out his hair over the subject.
"It seems like people are making a big deal out of it, but it's really not," said Williams, who has no plans to tuck his hair inside his helmet. "They don't understand that in the course of a game, they're trying to grab whatever they can to make a tackle. They're not trying to hurt me or do anything personally. It's just part of the game."
As are dreadlocks, which are becoming increasingly commonplace on NFL rosters. They also have gained increased acceptance from those who might not have felt that same way before dreadlocks became popularized by athletes and entertainers such as actress Whoopi Goldberg and rock star Lenny Kravitz.
"When I was growing up, two types of people had them - people who were considered thugs and people who wore them for religion (purposes)," said Green Bay running back Najeh Davenport, referring to the traditional use of dreadlocks by Rastifarians. "Pop culture then started to pick them up."
Although he plays in an area where the population is 91 percent white, Davenport said he and his two black teammates with dreadlocks (Al Harris and fellow defensive back Mike McKenzie) have received excellent treatment from local Packers faithful.
"At first, I didn't think it would be that way," said Davenport, who played at the University of Miami. "Now, all we get is love. People get all of us confused and say we look alike, but it's really the hair."
Just hair.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/6989912.htm
If it were, Williams would never have defied his mother by growing dreadlocks as a teenager. Williams would have gotten a haircut when told by his college coach that a Heisman Trophy wasn't winnable without changing his appearance.
There is one drawback with dreadlocks: Getting your hair yanked in games.
Still, while his athletic gifts helped him become one of the NFL's top running backs, Williams' dreadlocks are his trademark. Not only do they reflect his individuality, Williams also has helped assimilate a once-controversial hairstyle worn predominantly by blacks into mainstream culture.
"I wasn't the first one, but I think I opened the door for a lot of people," Williams said. "If you look at college football and the NFL now, a lot of people are wearing dreadlocks and it's acceptable.
"I'd say 10 years ago, a black person with dreads was probably more intimidating than they are today. People had the wrong idea. I think I showed that (dreads) don't make a person or mean anything."
But in a way, they do.
Just ask Sandy Williams, who was afraid dreadlocks would cause her son to get shunned in the white middle-class neighborhood where they lived. Or University of Texas coach Mack Brown, who had urged Williams and other players to present themselves as if attending a job interview.
"Ricky taught us all something," Brown said. "He gave me a different perspective on people. He taught us all to get past what a person may look like, even if it is a little different. He taught us all that we are never too old to learn."
Until he was 16, Williams wore his hair in a variety of styles.
"He's had everything from braids, a Jeri curl, an S-curl, curled top with shaved sides and bottom, to a totally shaved head," Sandy Williams said. "Ricky started wearing dreads when it was not the popular thing to do."
Wanting to grow his hair longer, Williams said inspiration for the dreadlocks came from the music of Bob Marley, the late Jamaican reggae star who had them. Williams is such a fan that he named his daughter Marley.
"When you can make such good music and have meaning behind it, that's very special and very rare," Williams said. "Bob was very influential in my life because of the fact you could be very good at something and also get a point across and stand for something good. A lot of people just strive to be good at something and not necessarily have anything behind it. At a young age, I could put on his music, relax, listen to it over and over again, and learn something from it."
Sandy Williams, though, wanted to nix her son's new hairstyle after spotting "knots" on Ricky's head when a baseball cap he was wearing got knocked off. Although initially opposed to Ricky growing dreadlocks, Sandy Williams eventually caved in.
"Ricky reminded me I had always taught (my children) to be strong and secure as people and not to rely on what people said or thought to determine who they are and how they should act," said Sandy Williams, who also has two daughters. "After talking with him, I said to myself, `Ricky never talks back to me, he never disrespects me, he doesn't give me trouble, he's a good student. What was my problem?'
"If my biggest issue with Ricky was how he wanted to wear his hair, then I really didn't have an issue."
But just because Sandy Williams accepted them didn't mean those around her felt the same way. When Ricky Williams was the only member of the All-County football team in San Diego with dreadlocks, his mother remembers being assailed with a slew of racially charged insults after player photographs appeared in the newspaper.
"I heard everything from, `Why do you let your son go around looking like a monkey?' to, `Ricky looks like he belongs in the jungle somewhere,"" she said. "There were other comments made to me I wouldn't even repeat."
While his mother received grief, Williams said he was unaware of any problems with his haircut until arriving at the University of Texas.
"When I was in high school, it wasn't a big deal at all," Williams said. "Then I went to Texas and I was like the only one (with dreadlocks). I didn't do it for attention. But because a lot of people in football didn't have dreads, a lot was made of it."
Besides Brown, two of the most influential figures in Longhorns football history advised Williams to ditch the dreads. One of them was retired coach Darrell Royal, whose name graces the stadium where the Longhorns play. The other was Earl Campbell, who Williams admired so much that he embraced the "Little Earl" nickname given to him after breaking the Hall of Fame tailback's freshman rushing record at Texas.
Still, Williams wouldn't budge. As he excelled both on and off the field at Texas, those who initially didn't like his hair had grown to love it. When Williams broke the all-time NCAA rushing record against Texas A&M, dreadlocks were superimposed on images of Royal, Campbell and then-Texas Governor George W. Bush on the stadium's giant video scoreboard.
Several weeks later, Williams won the Heisman Trophy.
Thanks to Williams, current Longhorns tailback Cedric Benson has been spared unnecessary grief about his dreadlocks.
"It's cool that he isn't afraid to be independent and go against the norm," said Benson, who has adopted Williams as his mentor. "It makes him very unique and interesting."
The New Orleans Saints felt the same way. Rather than urging a makeover after making him the fifth overall selection in the 1999 draft, the Saints embraced Williams' look. New Orleans coach Mike Ditka attended an introductory news conference for Williams wearing a dreadlock wig, leading to Saints fans doing the same.
"He could be a clown like that," Williams said of Ditka. "I thought it was great. They had made some (wigs) and I saw a couple in the stands. It was part of the fanfare."
The dreadlocks didn't go unnoticed by opposing defenses. During one of Williams' games with the Saints, New Orleans tackle Kyle Turley returned to the huddle with a dreadlock that had gotten ripped out at the bottom of a pile.
Game officials are allowed to issue a personal foul if judging a player intentionally tackled another by the hair. No penalties were called earlier this season when Williams' hair was pulled by New York Jets linebacker Marvin Jones and Buffalo Bills safety Lawyer Milloy.
"I've got to do whatever I've got to do to bring a guy down," Jones said. "Whether it's hair, legs, arms, it still counts."
New York Giants safety Shaun Williams said his team hasn't conducted any hair-pulling drills in practice, but he also is prepared to snare whatever necessary to stop a red-hot tailback.
"You're trying to grab whatever you can," Shaun Williams said while smiling. "I'm not looking to grab anybody's hair. But if it comes between his hair and a touchdown, I have to grab it. I hope he understands."
Ricky Williams isn't the only running back having to deal with teams locking onto dreads. Indianapolis' Edgerrin James trimmed his after getting tackled by the hair in the season opener against Cleveland.
"I think it's wrong," said Dolphins backup linebacker Tommy Hendricks, who also has dreadlocks sticking out of his helmet. "It's almost like pulling on a facemask. You're pulling on someone's head to get them down. That could result in an injury."
Williams, though, isn't pulling out his hair over the subject.
"It seems like people are making a big deal out of it, but it's really not," said Williams, who has no plans to tuck his hair inside his helmet. "They don't understand that in the course of a game, they're trying to grab whatever they can to make a tackle. They're not trying to hurt me or do anything personally. It's just part of the game."
As are dreadlocks, which are becoming increasingly commonplace on NFL rosters. They also have gained increased acceptance from those who might not have felt that same way before dreadlocks became popularized by athletes and entertainers such as actress Whoopi Goldberg and rock star Lenny Kravitz.
"When I was growing up, two types of people had them - people who were considered thugs and people who wore them for religion (purposes)," said Green Bay running back Najeh Davenport, referring to the traditional use of dreadlocks by Rastifarians. "Pop culture then started to pick them up."
Although he plays in an area where the population is 91 percent white, Davenport said he and his two black teammates with dreadlocks (Al Harris and fellow defensive back Mike McKenzie) have received excellent treatment from local Packers faithful.
"At first, I didn't think it would be that way," said Davenport, who played at the University of Miami. "Now, all we get is love. People get all of us confused and say we look alike, but it's really the hair."
Just hair.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/6989912.htm
