Ricky Williams Goes to Egypt, Enjoys Tear Gas
"What I took away from it, it was incredible to see and it was very empowering to see..."
The world traveling Ricky Williams managed to find himself in the middle of history on his recent off-season trip to Egypt, arriving in Cairo just as the revolution in that country was beginning.
Williams recounts the experience to Sid Rosenberg on WQAM in Miami:
"The first night as we drove to the hotel, we saw a bunch of people gathering and our cab driver said, 'We don't like our government. We don't think it's fair and so we're demonstrating.'
It was so obvious that people were gathered that he offered the information. He wasn't clear on whether it would be dangerous or not.
What I took away from it, it was incredible to see and it was very empowering to see."
Over the course of the trip, the Miami Dolphins running back says he heard gun shots, observed looting and rioting, and yet says he never felt in danger. He even considered an experience with tear gas to be 'enjoyable.'
"We walked out of the store and it was dusty because it's Egypt and it's kind of dusty. So we walked out and my eyes started to burn a little bit and my nostrils started to burn. And I was thinking, it's just the dust but I didn't want to be like a wimp so I didn't say anything.
And my friend, AJ, was like, 'Are your eyes burning?'
I was like, 'Yeah.'
He said, 'Are your nostrils burning?'
I was like, 'Yeah.'
And then we looked around and were like, 'I think it's tear gas.'
And so I take my shirt and I try to put it over my nose and my mouth and he looks at me and he's like, 'We're never going to be in tear gas.'
And I'm like, 'You're right.' So I put my shirt down and say, 'Let's enjoy this.'
And so we rode through the tear gas and we enjoyed it."
"The most tension or anger that I experienced weren't the Egyptians. It was all the Americans trying to get out of Egypt."
Hopefully he considers that less a fact about the situation and more a matter of luck.