I first met Ricky Williams during our time in the Ganjier Program, in the live training in Humboldt County. I remember the buzz that floated around him in the room. Here was an 11-season NFL record-breaking running back and Heisman Trophy winner, learning about the science and history of cannabis among a group of passionate stoners, openly and insightfully. 

When I first met him back in 2022, the NFL superstar introduced himself to the Ganjier group by both Ricky Williams, Heisman Trophy winner football player, and as his birth name, Errick, an astrologist and cannabis advocate who studies Ayurvedic medicine, herbology, and holistic practices like yoga and Tai Chi. 

“If you’re a professional athlete, at best, you might get around half of your life. But there’s another half of life to live after that.” 

He’s sitting outside on an early spring morning taking a puff off some Sour Durban he got from a local dispensary. 

Mack Brown, Ricky’s Coach for his 1998 Longhorn football season, told him: 

“If whatever you do out here on the football field is the greatest thing you ever do in your life, you have all failed.” 

To Ricky, it meant that what we’re doing is great, but it should be preparing and training us to do something even greater in life. He referred to the tagline of Highsman, his craft cannabis lifestyle brand, “Spark Greatness.” 

“Inside each of us, we have a vision around a dream. Each person’s individual expression of greatness is whatever it takes to make that vision or dream a reality.” 

When he was a kid in school, he had watched football thinking, “Wow, it would be cool to win the Heisman trophy one day.” He had a vision and went ‘all-in’ to make it his reality. “And I did! I won it!” he tells me laughing, “So no matter how crazy it is, I’m convinced the vision is possible.   

Breaking Records and Negative Stigmas

Ricky’s football career kicked off at the University of Texas, where he played for the Texas Longhorns college football team. He switched to running back in his junior year, completing the season with 1,893 rushing yards and 25 touchdowns.

His senior year started out rocky, relationships and personal stuff felt as if it was falling apart, and he noticed it affecting his football performance. So he’d get self-critical, his mind spiraling to a dark place. His best friend and roommate at the time, who happened to be a weed smoker, passed Ricky the bong to take a couple of hits. He said when he went to bed that night, his mind wasn’t in that dark, negative spiral. 

“I wasn’t obsessing over the things wrong in my life or feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I was imagining things being better, lightening up, and focusing on what I could do.” 

He would go to sleep thinking, “I’m going to have the best day at practice tomorrow,” because he knew that was possible. The next two weeks, he broke records – back-to-back 300 rushing-yard games. 

“It’s funny to say it really happened, and it is crazy. It’s astronomical to do. It was impossible for me not to make the connection between the state of my mindset and my actual performance, and how cannabis helped make that connection.” 

He completed his fourth year of college football breaking the NCAA Division I-A records for career rushing yards and all-purpose yards and winning the 1998 Heisman Trophy. 

Although that was the moment Ricky began to understand his connection with cannabis, he knew he couldn’t yet express or explore the interest to the fullest. He grew up hearing adults and coaches say smoking weed is bad. In sports, most coaches would try to run off the kids on the team who were smokers. “They used the stoner types to set the example that if you really want to be an athlete, then you don’t smoke–the couple of players on the team that did smoke, they were never really treated as star players.” 

So while in his mind he thought differently, he followed the archetype that “star players aren’t smokers.” 

A Football Running Back’s Call For Adventure 

When playing for the Miami Dolphins in 2004, Ricky Williams tested positive for cannabis in a series of drug tests during the on and off-season, facing a fine and four-game suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy. 

“It was 20 years ago,” he says, “Nobody talked about cannabis in the NFL. So then I suddenly became the star player who was a smoker. Even if it was true, it wasn’t something I was comfortable with at the time, but once it was out in the open, I was forced to.” 

The football player in him wanted to play, but the inner hippie, whom he hadn’t fully listened to yet, wanted to get high and read spiritual philosophy books. “I failed that drug test because a part of me inside was yelling like, ‘Hello, I’m in here!’” he says. So he took a year off, studying Ayurvedic medicine and spiritual philosophy, backpacking around to different countries like a small coastal town in East Australia to get in touch with that part of himself. 

When he made the decision to come back and play more football, Ricky Williams felt he was a more conscious, full person. He eased into the role of a ‘hippie football player,’ and said this time, it was a much more realistic and comfortable place to be. 

“Once you know who you are, and you have confidence in who you are, then you will always know what to do in every situation.” 

The Canadian Point of View

Upon his return in 2006, Ricky was suspended for an entire football season after he broke the NFL drug policy for a fourth time. The Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts negotiated Ricky Williams with the NFL’s Dolphins, offering him to play for a year in the CFL if he could return to the NFL in 2007. Ricky said during his time in the CFL for the Toronto team, they didn’t test for cannabis as part of their drug policy at all. 

Within the first few weeks of being out there, what he heard from people the most was, “What’s the big deal? It’s just pot.” 

That’s when he noticed life without the negative stigma – the attitude around the plant was a different dynamic for himself and his teammates. 

The New Game Plan

Today, Ricky Williams says he often gets asked, “How do you want to be remembered?”  He sees that question as identifying the impact he wants to have in the world. 

“As a football player, it’s crystal clear what our role is in the ‘grand scheme of things,’ for yourself and your team,” he says. Like a game plan, you put all of your focus and energy into doing it. 

He excels at football due to a clear focus, compared to life's distractions. “So when I started learning about astrology I realized, it’s like a game plan!” You look into the truth of the stars and planets, and things will work out. 

The Alignment of Cannabis & Astrology 

When something is stirring up or bugging Ricky inside, smoking a joint gives him the new perspective and clarity needed to break down that movement. He explained that there are movements and energies inside of us, some that we’re aware of and some that are unconscious. While cannabis helps give clarity on the movement inside, astrology does the same thing but on a larger scale.

“One of the beautiful things about both cannabis and astrology is the validation. Sometimes people have difficulty accessing this larger vision, for plenty of reasons. Society is constantly telling us we’re not good enough – when really, anything we want to do to make a real difference in the world is going to be extremely difficult. It’s about finding ways to keep yourself inspired.” 

Williams says he found his practice of consuming cannabis allows him to stay connected, engaged, motivated, and open to that vision. 

“With astrology, your heart will tell you what it needs, and the astrology chart will reflect exactly what you are and what you know.” 

Today, he claims his professional football career has given him the confidence, financial resources, and connections to explore the taboo interests he loves, like cannabis or astrology. He’s created an astrology app called Lila, a platform promoting freedom and personal empowerment through personalized birth chart readings and resources.  

4/20: The Season of the Planet Venus

Even with decades worth of record-breaking football stats, NFL drug policy violations, backpacking around different countries, and astrology and spiritual philosophy–Ricky Williams now sees the value of a game plan in life and the universal, vibrational connection between the plant, planet, and stars. 

When I asked him what’s the biggest takeaway to understand from the alignment of cannabis and astrology, his eyes lit up with excitement. 

“Back in Mesopotamian Times when the first record of scripture and writing existed on clay tablets, many of the ancient texts found included astronomy references…” he explains in a whisper as if he is revealing the biggest secret known within the stars. 

“These text references included insight on herbs, and for cannabis, Mesopotamian astrologers called it ‘the perfume of Venus.’ In astrology, the Taurus season starts on April 20th (4/20). Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus. The unconscious connection of the day we celebrate cannabis in the world is the first day of the season ruled by the planet Venus.”

Taurus is in the middle of spring, everything is warm, alive, and getting brighter again. This symbolizes the planet Venus–feel-good, loving energy. From a higher astrological perspective, Ricky Williams says cannabis is ruled by the planet Venus for being a powerful, medicinal herbal plant. 

“There’s a lot of deep insight there. I should write a book or speak about that more one day,” He laughs to himself, but I nod my head in the hope that he means it. 

And maybe he will one day, if it’s in his game plan.