Why NFL Stars Hung 'Em Up Early

Jan. 8, 2005 — -- It was in the last week of July, just seven weeks before the start of the National Football League season, that Miami Dolphins star running back Ricky Williams abandoned his pro football career and his team.

His sudden retirement eviscerated the Dolphins' offense and the team foundered.

"I was completely surprised," said Dave Wannstedt, the former Dolphins head coach -- who himself threw in the towel just after the Dolphins stumbled to a 1-8 start.

When Wannstedt quit, many people were sympathetic. But when Williams dropped out, most fans and journalists were baffled and angry.

However, Robert Smith, a two-time Pro Bowl running back with the Minnesota Vikings, says he understood.

"That sense of freedom and that weight being lifted," Smith said, "I mean, that's something that's really hard for people to understand: How people that have the ability to actually perform at that level wouldn't love it the same way that they do."

Smith holds many of the Vikings' all-time rushing records, even though he retired at the age of 28, after his best season.

He decided he would hang up his cleats while he was, "under the knife once again -- fourth time that I'd been in there in knee surgery, third time on the right knee. And [I] was thinking, 'I didn't even have a major injury this season and I'm still getting this thing cleaned out. How much longer do I want to do this?' "

'My Time's Come'

In sports, as in showbiz, one of the enduring myths is the idea, perhaps the fantasy, of quitting at the very top. But with few exceptions, big-league performers don't have that luxury. More often than not, the decision is made for them.

To paraphrase a famous philosopher, "Life in the NFL is nasty, brutish and short." The average pro career lasts less than four years. The average player's age is 27.

For those elite players lucky enough to get out on top, the decision to give it all up can be gut-wrenching. Former NFL quarterback Troy Aikman was prompted to deliver an emotional farewell when he decided to retire instead of moving to another team after the Dallas Cowboys cut him in 2001.

"You watch and you think that your time will never come," Aikman said. "And my time's come."

Smith believes the key to Williams' retirement is that in his two seasons with Miami, Williams carried the ball 775 times, more than any running back in history.

"I really can't imagine what it would be like carrying the ball that many times," Smith said. "It's amazing how a 280-pound, even 300-pound players, they run as fast as the receivers and the running backs. Especially in close quarters. And that's when you receive those kind of hits that are the most painful and I think the most damaging."

'No One Can Say I Was Over The Hill'

Jim Brown disagrees with Smith's rationale. In nine stellar years with the Cleveland Browns, Brown never missed a game and established himself as perhaps the greatest running back in the history of football.

"I think the pounding is a part of what the sport is all about," Brown said. "You get pounded and you pound people. And that's the whole point of the game."

Brown was just 30, and at the peak of his powers, when he quit.

"You must choose your time to allow you to be relevant forever, because no one can say I was over the hill," Brown said. "People talk to us and wanted autographs. And I recognized to go from that into a regular job would probably be very difficult. So, when the movie opportunity came along, it answered that particular problem."

Brown had an immediate breakthrough in the movie "The Dirty Dozen," a triumph that was more than just personal.

"As an African-American actor, the role was very dignified," Brown said. "I was an integral part, and I was my own man."

'They Don't Know You'

Robert Smith quit the NFL dissatisfied with being admired by strangers for his performances. For him, football fun peaked when he played before his home folks in high school.

"What happens in big-time college sports and what happens in professional sports, these people have a superficial understanding of who you are," Smith said. "They don't really know how much you've been through. They may hear a couple of interviews. They may read a few articles about you. But they don't know you the way that that home crowd in high school knows you.

"It's an incredible sense of achievement," Smith said of his younger days, "an incredible sense of fraternity when you know that these are the people that grew up around you and knew you the best, and you get to perform in front of them and show them what you've got."

After making the decision to quit at the very top of their games, Smith and Brown do have regrets.

Smith doesn't consider his football career 100 percent successful, "because I didn't achieve what I wanted to achieve, which was a championship. And that would've been the greatest and, I think, the defining moment of my career. But as far as dealing with the hand that you've been dealt, I think that I handled it well."

Brown, who did lead his team to a championship in 1964, looks back and, "I think of the things I didn't do. I should have scored a touchdown if I put the ball over the goal line, but I tried to grab the goal posts. I should have accelerated when I was 25 yards down the field and left my block, but I tried to follow the block and got tackled. And I agonize sometimes, I hit my fists and say, 'Man, if I had just took an extra step. If I had just not made that decision.'

Setting an Example

But in leaving football, Brown knew from the start that movie fame would help him help other black men prosper.

"I developed the Black Economic Union while I was still playing," he said, "because I realized that until you had economic development, you could not really be a decision maker."

Then, around 15 years ago, Brown changed his focus because he noticed the world had changed since the 1960s.

"Back then, you were fighting basically the concept of white America -- to be included, to get your rights, et cetera," he said. "Now, you're fighting the ignorance of young black men across this country who kill each other."

Brown takes his fight into churches and board rooms, and wins financial support for the Amer-I-Can program from people like Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell, whose budget this year contains $300,000 for Amer-I-Can.

"Behind each of the people who are in those uniforms, there's a story of hope," Campbell said. "There's a story of inspiration. And in many of them, there's been a story of overcoming incredible obstacles."

A teenager named M.J. is part of the Cleveland Amer-I-Can peace team.

"Basically, what we're doing right now is going into the schools, trying to build a relationship with the people that we feel need most of the help, to bring into the program," M.J. said

Outside Cleveland's East Technical high school, both M.J. and her mentor work the front lines, trying to pre-empt future casualties.

Going Home Again

In Euclid, Ohio, just about 10 miles from East Technical High, Smith went home to sell his new book, "The Rest of the Iceberg."

"I don't care where you go in life and what you do, how much you achieve, home is always home," Smith said.

"I wanted to do something else with my life," Smith added. "Even not knowing exactly what that was, I just felt that there were other things that I could be doing -- and that football had done a great deal for me and for my family but that it had served its purpose and that it was time to move on."

Once a pre-med student at Ohio State, Smith has continued down that path in his other post-football career -- medical services.

"The opportunity has come up to work with a company that has already won a contract bid here in Ohio to provide a prescription plan for people over the age of 60 and for people near poverty level," he said. "So, it's rewarding in the sense that you feel that you're really making a difference, and in something that really impacts people's lives."

Smith hopes that sharing his life in print will help readers understand the people who play professional sports -- and in some ways understand their own lives.

"I was actually talking to Ricky Williams about this back in June before he retired," Smith said. "It's funny. You can stay the same person but you get perceived so many different ways. It's truly amazing. And people just go back and forth, back and forth.

"But it's all about consistency," he added. "Just believe in yourself and believe in who you are, and just try and make yourself a happy person by doing that and sticking to your guns."

Dave Marash originally reported this story for ABC News' "Nightline" on Jan. 4, 2005.