Ricky Williams stares glumly out the little window in the front door, watching the rain fall outside his leased one-bedroom home in Nevada City, Calif.

He's 27 years old, owns a Heisman Trophy and has made millions of dollars. But he's a lost soul, disheveled and out of football because of too many failed drug tests. He turns to the camera he invited to film him for a documentary and delivers an agitated, rambling response to a question.


The lens eventually zooms in, showing chunks of food entangled in his nappy beard. Williams shrugs. He doesn't care.

The latest offering in ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary film series, "Run Ricky Run: Hard to Tackle, Harder to put a Finger On," provides a compelling look at the mystifying Miami Dolphins back with intimate footage shot over nearly six years. It will debut April 27.

"A gentle man in a brutal business, he of the naïve, best intentions, asked me to make this film so his kids would know who their father was in case he never came home," filmmaker Sean Pamphilon narrates in the opening scene.

"Within weeks of his bizarre retirement from the NFL in 2004, the man who was universally loved when I first met him asked me to tell his life story with one directive: absolute truth."

I'd really like to see this. Can't wait for it to air.