Ricky Williams is one of the most interesting players in the National Football League (NFL) in that he seems to be unique in many ways that differ from the traditional norms and stereotypes about professional football players. The main intriguing aspects of Ricky Williams’ life that separate him from most of his teammates are:

1. His interest in yoga: Ricky is a certified yoga instructor.

2. Your approval of a prescription medication to treat your social anxiety disorder

3. His vegetarian diet

4. His Hindu faith

By normal standards within the general population of Americans, any one of the four items listed above would be enough to place an individual in a small minority of all United States citizens. The fact that the four unique and in some cases controversial issues listed above apply to a man who happens to be a standout NFL football player who was considered one of the greatest college football players of all time is particularly strange.

When most people think of professional soccer players, they don’t picture serene yoga classes. Ricky Williams is the exception to this rule because he is such a personal advocate of the practice of yoga that he has actually gone so far as to become certified to teach classes. He has given free yoga classes in Toronto, Canada.

Williams suffers from a form of social anxiety disorder that his therapists have helped him manage. Having social anxiety disorder is difficult for the average person and can be increasingly difficult to deal with as a celebrity who is constantly bombarded by strangers and attention. For a brief period, Ricky worked with a large pharmaceutical company as a kind of spokesperson to promote education about the product the company was producing to help manage social anxiety issues.

Ricky doesn’t eat the kind of diet normally associated with a mighty 230-pound NFL football player. As a professional soccer player, Williams can afford to eat at the best steakhouses, but instead chooses to practice a vegetarian diet in which he refrains from eating meat. In addition to his personal diet as a crusade to help animals, Ricky has been the face of the organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

According to a 2001 study, 4% of Americans are Hindu. Ricky Williams, an African American, counts himself as one of the 1.1 million US citizens who practice Hinduism. Of the approximately one million practicing Hindu citizens living in the United States, the vast majority are of Indian descent. Williams, a current Florida resident, doesn’t even live in one of the five US states where Hinduism is most prolific. Those states include: Illinois, Texas, New Jersey, New York and California.