Ricky's tale had a familiar ring

The retirement this week of Ricky Williams, the once-dynamic and always enigmatic running back, reminded me of a player from the late '60s who followed a similar path. Ralph "Chip" Oliver wasn't as decorated a player coming out of college -- nobody traded their entire draft board for him -- but he was a natural talent who could have been a force had it not been for a, shall we say, alternative lifestyle.

Chip Oliver, a linebacker out of USC, was part of the Oakland Raiders' amazing 1968 draft class, a group led by Ken Stabler, Art Shell and George Atkinson. After one season, Shell recalls thinking Oliver, a fifth-round pick, might have been the best player from that class. John Madden, then the Raiders' linebackers coach, agreed when I asked him about Oliver a few years ago: Oliver was a Pro Bowl talent on the field.

Off the field, however, he was moving in a different direction. Of course, we're talking about a quirky kid from southern California who ended up in northern California during the Summer of Love. Just as Ricky Williams a few decades later embraced the yoga/meditation/spiritual world, Oliver became a hippie and left the Raiders to join a commune.

Just like Williams, Oliver maintained at the start that it was a purely spiritual, holistic movement that had nothing to do with drugs. Just like Williams, he later admitted to being a drug abuser. In Oliver's case, true to the times, he was on LSD and all forms of hallucinogenics he could get his hands on.

And like Williams, he eventually attempted a football comeback. Oliver, who had also become a vegetarian and lost more than 50 pounds by the time he showed up at Raiders camp in 1971, had no chance. But Madden, now the team's head coach, did everything he could for a player he cared a great deal about. He tried Oliver at safety, but it just didn't work.

Unlike Williams, Oliver faded into obscurity at that point. He wrote a book, "High for the Game," chronicling his journey, and then he pretty much disappeared.

One other quirky note about Oliver: While attending USC, he had done a little acting. And he even earned a part in the pilot for Norman Lear's soon-to-be iconic sitcom, "All in the Family." Oliver played the role of Archie Bunker's son-in-law -- a.k.a, Meathead -- the role eventually played by Rob Reiner when the series actually aired.

The bottom line: Ricky Williams leaves the NFL with us all thinking, "What if...?" The same could be said for Chip Oliver.