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Under normal circumstances, any NFL running back who retires after gaining over 10,000 yards is considered to have had a good, possibly great, career. Not even Hall-of-Famers Earl Campbell, Larry Csonka, Jim Taylor and Leroy Kelly reached that plateau.

However, as we all know by now, nothing about Ricky Williams can be considered normal.

Today the news broke that the former Heisman Trophy winner from Texas is calling it a career after 12 seasons in the league. He leaves with 10,009 rushing yards (26^th on the all-time list) and 66 touchdowns (32^nd all-time). And yet, despite these impressive numbers, I feel the same way about Williams’ pro career as I do after eating a snack of raw carrots and celery – unsatisfied, still hungry and wanting something more.

However, this blog is not about Ricky’s time in the NFL. Whether it is Mike Ditka trading all the Saint’s draft picks in 1999 for the right to select Williams, his time wth the Dolphins, the two suspensions for violating the NFL’s drug policy or his earlier “retirement”, there are enough sub-plots in the man’s professional career to fill a long running soap opera.

This blog is about something much nearer and dearer to my heart. This about how Ricky Williams kick started the Mack Brown era and helped make Texas Longhorn football relevant again. More specifically, it is about the events of November 27, 1998. It is a day I will always remember and hold dear to my heart.

In 1998, the Texas football program was at crossroads. Coming off a 4-7 season, DeLoss Dodds fired head coach John Mackovic and hired North Carolina’s Mack Brown. The new coach had his work cut out for him. Mackovic had alienated high school football coaches across the state, and Texas A&M’s excellent coach R.C. Slocum was on the verge of leaving the Longhorns in the dust.

Obviously, Brown mended all those important relationships. But his first recruiting trip at Texas began in his own locker room. Williams, who had 1,893 yards as a junior, was thinking about leaving for the NFL. Brown, in what may have been his finest feat of salesmanship, convinced him to stay in school. It proved to be a great decision for both Williams and Texas.

Ricky Williams was one of the four best college RB’s I have ever had the privilege of seeing play, the other three being Campbell, Eric Dickerson and Billy Sims. (I never saw Herschel Walker play in person)  And his senior season at Texas was the thing dreams are made of. He gained 2,327 yards, won the Heisman and led the Horns to a 9-3 record a Cotton Bowl berth.

He also became college football’s all-time leading rusher, breaking Tony Dorsett’s old mark in the final regular season game against Texas A&M. He carried the ball 44 times for 259 yards that day as the Longhorns upset the sixth-ranked Aggies 26-24. I remember that game clearly for two reasons. First, it marked Texas return to college football’s hierarchy and it came at the expense of a bitter rival. That alone would make it memorable.

But more important than that, it was the last football game I ever watched with my father, who passed away less than two months later of cancer.

So Ricky Williams played the starring role in what has become one of my most cherished memories. I will always be a fan of James Street, Steve Worster, Vince Young and Colt McCoy. But in my mind they can never be what Ricky Williams is to me.

My favorite Longhorn.