The trashing of Ricky Williams is just another example of our culture's fake ideas about loyalty and cohesion. "He betrayed his team" is the phrase seen and heard throughout the sports media now that Williams has left both the Miami Dolphins and football. This outrage is a misplaced emotion linked to a long-dead ideal about what it means to play professional sports in America.  An ideal which, in fact, should probably never have existed. The concept that a team for whom you play for money is a "family" is as flawed as the concept that the corporation for which you work is a family.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, puts it best: "When you can't play, they'll get rid of you. A guy gets hurt in practice, and they move the drill and keep going. That's the lesson players learn, and some learn it later than others. This is a business." Exactly. If Williams had not performed up to expectations, had he been significantly injured, had he asked for too much money--he would have been cleaning out his locker faster than you could say "It was a mutual decision."

Attacking Williams is nothing new, however. When he played for the New Orleans Saints, he used to notice things like the excessive crime and dirt in the city. The response was always "Shut up and do what you were hired to do." It also bothered people that he didn't want to give interviews. Later, he revealed that he suffered from social anxiety. He entered treatment, and eventually was able to stop taking anti-anxiety medication.

Williams got into trouble a few times for using marijuana. In a scathing editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune a few days ago, the writer wondered, if Williams didn't need his medication anymore, why was he still smoking marijuana? Can you imagine someone writing "If Williams didn't need his medication anymore, why was he still having a beer?" It is this type of pseudo-logic that is usually employed to attack someone who goes against the grain.

This is not to imply that Williams is without flaws. No one is. But Ricky Williams' strength has always been playing football, not being a jock, so he doesn't fit in. He wants to travel, take photographs, and get on with his life. How "disloyal" can  you get?