The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: Life Starts After Sports

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Ricky Williams joins us for a conversation on LeBron James' potential retirement and Ja Morant's troubles from the perspective of someone who's been where each of them stand in their careers and lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

¡Yor, ¿el que te va a hacer? ¡Tenerá un nuevo trabajo! Listen to what you hear, and stop the eyes. We take all the dirt, but the most terrifying is not to know what to trust. Look at the people who ask you to look at it, and you want to follow the path. Birdbox Barcelona, star in Netflix, July 14th. You dare to know. From a business perspective, we've been talking this week about how Dana White grabs the narrative from Francis and Gano and it's not about I'm not paying my fighters correctly, me and Disney are making a ton of money off of a fighter, a group of fighters that don't have a union.

It becomes about Francis and Ghanu is a coward. He doesn't want to fight because he will not fight on my terms, under my contract terms. He is someone who does not want to fight and they fight in the open space with control of the narrative. A lot of people this week have accused LeBron James of shifting the narrative because he too runs a business, runs an economy, knows how to take care of his image and brand. And LeBron James says, after a sweep, I'm thinking about retiring. And it stops being about this culture of criticized the athlete you failed, you got swept. And it becomes, he forces us to talk about is one of the greatest ever going to retire. So I wanted to talk to Ricky Williams

about how one retires, when one retires, and how much space is needed to do that correctly when you're 38 years old or in Ricky, in your case, you were ready to retire, or you thought you were ready to retire at about 28, right? And it became a very hard thing for you to actually execute, even though in your late 20s You were kind of breaking out of your body being like man. I probably shouldn't be doing this anymore

Yeah, and so you thought what when you saw that Lebron James is asking a out loud in front of people I'm thinking about retiring Um, if I'm good for him. I think That's that's wonderful. And, you know, I go back to when I was 27, I just turned 27 and I was considering retiring. And for me, the excitement came because I could envision myself doing something different that felt better to me. And it kind of shocked me that that was possible because being a professional football player is supposed to be every young kid dreams of. So it kind of shocked me.

But it also excited me. And when I talked to my friends about quitting and walking away at the top of my game, everyone thought I was crazy. And LeBron obviously has a lot of other interests, things that he could do where he wouldn't have people throwing darts at him. When he's probably the greatest of all time.

And to me, I think that's a sign that maybe it is time to go on. You know what my mom always said, go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. Isn't he in a position though where the way for him to continue to get all the things that he wants is by staying maximum relevant

as a player, isn't that part of the tug that all of his other business interests are helped by being at the center of the Lakers still playing, still being, as he says, better than 90 to 95% of the league. Yeah, that's true, but I think that's a very slippery slope. It's a conversation that you and I have had a bunch of times. And it's what all professional athletes wrestle with is how do I maintain my relevancy

if it's not me utilizing and brutalizing my physical body to do so. And it's scary and it's tough, but I think the more athletes that are willing to ask those questions, inspire younger athletes to start asking those questions earlier. And I think LeBron is a great example, he's show. I've done a lot of work with uninterrupted his production company. And it's really powerful the kind of work we're doing. And I've talked about this before when I talked about the bronze chart is

you know, he's a capricorn. Capricorn is the elder, you know? And as an elder, if you're still known for what you're doing with your physical body, there's something going on here. And I think that so many people respect and look up to him, he has the ability to contribute a lot more, not playing basketball. Can you explain to us how hard it is to give up your identity as someone who makes his living with his physical body better than other people who are competing with their physical bodies? Like once you've gotten into the pipeline of getting fame and glory and money for those things,

celebrated culturally and internationally, how hard is it to stop? I think there's a bigger issue here. It is that for a lot of African Americans, the message that we get is the only value we have is that entertain people. And so if we buy into that lie, then yeah, we're stuck in a difficult, but if we don't buy into that lie and we've been creating value or using our opportunities that, that, playing professional sports and giving us to develop something that's more useful to people and more sustainable, I think that's actually the key, you know. And when I talk to young athletes, I say, this is an opportunity, but after the opportunity, that's really when life starts.

And if you're making the opportunity your life, you're going to miss, you're going to miss out on a whole lot. And so I think changing the mindset of so athletes start to think, I only play to get enough relevancy and experiences to be able to do something that doesn't destroy my body, where I'm not only defined by what I could do with my physical body. John Morant is again in the news, Rick, and you could speak to what it's like to get the intoxicants of fame before you're an adult,

before you're a grown man. John Morant is someone who publicly looks like he's in some peril. Police are called to his house reportedly. Yesterday for a wellness check because some of the stuff on social media had some good buy in it and people just wanted to check on his mental health.

What are your observations on what's happening with John Moran? First I say, I mean, at least the way you just said it, that's bullshit. You know, checking on someone's mental health is not waiting until the mental health has gotten to the place where bullshit. You know, checking on someone's mental health is not waiting until the mental health has gotten to the place where you're afraid. Checking on someone's mental health

is caring about what's going on inside of them. And I think due to this whole process of John Brent, no one's really cared. All I care about is that he's quote breaking rules or not on the court, which is, again, in my opinion, it's bullshit. And I think to really care about someone's mental health, you know, I think I've, the run-ricky run documentary.

You know, one of my favorite part of that doc was Jim Brown being interviewed by Sean. And Jim said, you don't know what's going on inside of this man's head. You don't know, right? And the unfortunate thing about most athletes is people don't care unless it's interfering with their ability to compete.

And that in itself is not good for our soul. When the only value that people see from us is that what we can contribute to their entertainment and they don't really care about who's on the inside, that's not good for athletes. And I think the older athletes, we just accept that's the way it is. But I think these younger kids, they're actually having to wrestle with it more. And I think, you know, we can glorify fame in the intoxicate, but what we don't talk about is the bullshit side of the fame, right? I don't think the glory in the, I don't think that's the part that's troubling him. I think all the bullshit is what's troubling him and all the hypocrisy.

Can you explain to us what it's like to have the pressure of being an economy on you? Again, when you explain to the mindset of a professional athlete is different from the mindset of the fans, right? Because if it was, if it was, well, it's different from the mindset of the fans. And so I think you have to step in,

you have to step inside of a different perspective to truly be able to truly be able to appreciate it. And he's not feeling the pressure of the economy. He's feeling the bullshit that people put him through when he is the paycheck. Right? And this is something that I wrestle with. And this is a big part of why I retired in 2024 because, you know, the reality was the dolphins needed me, but they weren't acting like that. They're acting like they had leverage. They didn't.

So I walked away. Do you think John Moran should step away for a bit because it's hard to stop working once you're somebody who's the, when your identity is this tied up in all people know about John Miranda's that he's a basketball player. They don't care about anything else. Well, he's so young. That's all he knows about himself too. And if he gets stuck in that definition, he's not going to be able to find out those other parts about himself. And

so I don't think he needs to step away. It's the offseason. I think he needs to go and understand himself better. And hopefully, a team or hopefully his team is willing to embrace what he learns about himself and make him feel seen and appreciate it and heard. I think, you know, I don't think we should baby at least, but in a way, we should care more about them, especially if it's the team. And when you get into contract negotiations and it becomes business, I don't know. I think the teams that are that are truly successful,

long-term or the ones that actually care about their players. What is the line you're drawing between babying and nurturing? So, babying is where you is where you call. You see behavior and then you let it slide until it gets to the point and then you punish them. That's how we treat our kids mostly. And I think nurturing is when you see things, asking yourself, oh, he needs something. When the baby is crying and I think, oh, baby needs something, then I'm curious about what I can do to help the baby get what it needs so that it can thrive, thrive. Because nurturing is about seeing something grow and thrive. And, you know, as an adult, John Miranda, baby, he's a baby adult, right? He needs to be nurturing to help him to go and do a mature adult. Yeah, but that infantilizes athletes in a way

that I get uncomfortable with, even though I agree with you, even though I understand what you're saying, that the pressures, the adult pressures that are arrived at his life along with basketball, because that's hard enough to be great at without getting good at all the other stuff you need to be good at to be running an empire, Ricky.

Well, I'm not even saying running an empire, I'm saying being a human being. This is this is the problem. I think once someone puts on a jersey, they're no longer a human being anymore. And I think, again, I don't think that's I don't think that's good for happens because it alienates them from themselves. Weren't you always getting hurt by feeling like the business didn't care about you in a way that seemed naive? It seemed naive, but seemed naive to whom? Right? Of course, the business, right? Not naive to the human, human side. I guess I felt like Michael wasn't trying to help humanize athletes.

But you're asking, I mean, everyone benefits, everyone benefits from that. But you're asking corporations to humanize athletes when your just bodies meant to sell jerseys to the corporation. Exactly. But I think in the long term, it's more sustainable. If, you know, to me, I think it reflects well

on all the leagues. If when the players lead the league, they're going out into the world and they're doing big things. But you say more sustainable, but what is most sustainable is the business, not the humanity. The humanity is disposable.

It's interchangeable. We'll get the next Ricky Williams. Well, that's only gonna last for so long. And we already started to see these younger athletes are waking up. They're demanding to be treated more like human beings. And I love it. And I hope I like to think that, you know,

what I've done as an athlete has been an example that you're allowed to be a human being. Ricky, good talking to you. Much love, budding. Yeah, thank you. Ricky good talking to you much love budding. Yeah, thank you.