Richie Williams understands the juxtaposition, because he's lived it. And he's living it now.

The former Hamilton Tiger-Cats quarterback, an African-American born and raised in the colour-preoccupied south, is working fulltime in stock car racing, which has traditionally been linked with the likes of yachting among the most white-centric sports on earth.

"Basically, that's the roots of the sport," Williams agrees by phone from North Carolina, and you can almost hear the shrug in his voice as strongly as you hear the "man" he sprinkles through his emphatic sentences.

"You know how the south was in the '60s and '70s, which was before I was even born. It's got a lot better in this sport, obviously, but even in the six or seven years I've been in the sport, it's a whole lot better than it was. NASCAR has had minority programs and that's helped a lot in bringing the sport to a lot more people, and more people to the sport.

"There's a lot more acceptance. It was basically ignorance. If you don't know somebody, you're not going to accept them."

During his Hamilton tenure of 2006-08, Williams was known and more than accepted.

Williams was among the most well-liked Ticats of the new millennium, and may be the most popular Ticat quarterback, ever, to start only three games.

Engaging and demonstrative, he connected with the fans and his teammates and could play the game a little, too. In August 2009, playing on a team that would win but three games and miss the playoffs for a record fourth straight time, Williams was named CFL player of the week in a huge win over the Argos.

Four years earlier, Williams, nursing an injured ankle, came off the bench to lead Appalachian State to the upset NCAA Divison 1-AA national title, after setting a U.S. record of 28 straight pass completions the previous season.

He migrated north to the Ticats in 2006. But in his time, the Cats also employed Jason Maas, then Casey Printers. And when they signed Kevin Glenn in early 2009, there was no more room for a guy who didn't have "Instant Saviour" typed into his contract. So he was released in April and signed with Winnipeg in June.

When the Bombers released him later that summer, he ignored other CFL offers and went back to Charlotte, North Carolina, to continue in NASCAR's Drive to Diversity program — instituted in 2004 to encourage more women and minorities to enter the sport at all levels — which he'd begun in the weeks after the Ticats cut him.

So his football career ended much sooner than he would have liked.

"It did," he says, "because of factors out of my control … and factors in my control. I made a decision to walk away from it because I wasn't enjoying it. I didn't want to put in the time and effort and still not get a chance to play."

Growing up in Camden, South Carolina, Williams had been a NASCAR fan since he was nine years old, and often went to the legendary Darlington track 20 minutes away.

At Appalachian State he played with Kevin Richardson, who went on to work for stock car icons the Hendricks Brothers, and on Sunday afternoons Williams and his roommate "would lie on the couch, tired from the game the day before, and watch the NASCAR races, not football."

When he entered the diversity program, he found that the two favourite sports of the American south, were married in the tryout format.

"It's kind of a scouting combine, man," he says. "Basically it's like pro day, in the morning they have you do sprints and things, and in the afternoon they give you a position and you work on the skills of that.

"My position was quarterback, now it's jackman. When the car comes into the pit, the crew jumps over the wall and changes tires, adds gas and makes adjustments.

"I carry one jack and do both sides. I jack up the right side, pull off the right rear tire and roll it around the car to the wall, then move to the front right, then carry the jack around to the left."

All at full speed, to save those few seconds which can separate several positions in any race.

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Williams got into race action quickly, working the NASCAR and Truck series simultaneously, part-time as a pit crewman and full time in the shop of Germain Racing as a mechanic. He'd studied graphic arts and technology at Appalachian State, and had always been technically-minded.

Now, he's with the powerful Roush Fenway team, based in Concord, North Carolina. He works the jack for former Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne in the top Sprint Cup series, and also for newly-signed Elliot Sadler in the Xfinity Series, the step down from Sprint. He also works in the company paint and body garage as a detailer and a "wrapper," putting decals on the cars.

"I didn't want to work as a mechanic like I did in the other shop," he said. "Besides, Roush doesn't like pit crew to do both, there's not enough time."

Not when the pit crew works out and practises like a football team, with four practise sessions, including cardio sessions, per week.

And speaking of football teams, he still follows the Ticats and is a friend of former teammate Joaquin Bradley, whom he's helped at Bradley's football camps in Brantford.

"Saw the semifinal and the Grey Cup," he says, "Tough loss in the Cup.

"I love Hamilton, man. I just enjoyed the people. Just walking down the street they'd be so friendly, they treated me so well and I tried to give it back. I wish it would have worked out …. If they didn't release me, I would have stayed in Hamilton.

"But I'm happy doing what I'm doing now. I want to be the jackman on a Sprint Cup champion.

"I love it, man. I grew up watching the sport, but never thought I'd be in it. I already understood it, so that made it easier for me."

There are a number of former football players who've recently gravitated to the sport where they hold their Super Bowl (The Daytona 500) at the start of the season. They don't broadcast their gridiron past, but the word always leaks out.

And both sport are physically dangerous. Recently, another stock car coming quickly into the pits clipped Williams painfully on the foot, forcing him to grip the jack handle to maintain his balance.

"I'd rather," he concludes, "be hit by a CFL defensive end than a 3,400-pound car."