Growing up, sports were Eric Richards’ life and for a year he was living the dream. 

A growth spurt before his junior year at Warren Central High School had taken him from a normal high school athlete, to one on the radar of major college programs.

Richards was a kicker and punter and his right leg powered him from Vicksburg to Starkville and a spot on Mississippi State’s football team.

There, he found success from the get go and earned the team’s starting punter job.

Then in an instant it all came crashing down.

During a scrimmage in August before he had even played a single game, a teammate broke through the line to block a punt and instead collided with Richards’ right ankle.

“Somebody broke through and blocked a punt and at that time I suffered a compound fracture where the bone came out of my shoes,” Richards said. “It was bad. I had to have surgery and whenever my foot healed, we found out that my hip labrum had been torn and it had healed incorrectly.”

The foot injury cost Richards his freshman season, and then the hip injury cost him his career. Although doctors were able to repair the labrum, the damage was too severe and Richards never was able to regain the power that made him an SEC caliber kicker.

“I had to go through surgery and after that I was never the same,” Richards said. “My hip was kind of like a pitcher having Tommy John surgery. I tried to come back. I tried to kick a little left footed, but it didn’t work out.”

The sport that had defined him was suddenly out of his life as he accepted a medical scholarship from the school and left the football team. After being ranked one of the top kickers in the country coming out of high school, Richards played in only two games at Mississippi State.

“I was hurt so I wasn’t really doing anything for the team so they needed that scholarship freed up,” Richards said. “It was a decision where I either had to say I can walk-on not on scholarship and I’ll still be on the team or do I say this is enough, I’ll accept the medical scholarship and move on. That is what I decided to do.”

Stepping onto campus and being expected to start right away, Richards said the pressure and attention was more than he was ready to handle.

The injury happened began a spiral that ended with a DUI and him ending his football career.

“It was surreal. It is definitely an experience that I wasn’t ready for. I really wasn’t ready to be an all-star type with all the attention that came with it. It was overwhelming to me,” Richards said. “I had a DUI on the front page of the paper when I was there. I went through all that as well. There was a rollercoaster. A lot of players, the same thing happened to them. I just happened to be hurt when it happened. I got injured. Then I got in trouble. It was a spiraling effect of one bad thing after the other after one good thing after another.”

Richards took advantage of the scholarship that was awarded him, and he graduated with a degree in Business Information Systems. The hole left by football continued to loom, though, as he looked to find his identity away from the field.

He started by pursuing a career in business, but learned sitting at a desk working on the computer wasn’t for him. He then pursued his M.B.A., but still couldn’t find that niche. Finally, a job in the restaurant industry began to open his eyes to a new passion for food.

“My mom was a dietician growing up so I was always in the kitchen,” Richards said. “She always was having me try new things, but it wasn’t until after sports that I really got into cooking and the food channels. I was pretty much self-taught.”

Richards decided to pursue cooking as a career and enrolled in the culinary program at Hinds Community College.

There he was introduced to Tom Pharr, who owns Anchuca and was in need of a chef and a general manager for the bed and breakfast.

With his culinary education and M.B.A., Richards was the perfect fit for the position and, for the first time since a teammate broke through the line on the football field, he had found his place.

“You have to refind yourself. Especially me. I was all sports. From the age of 21 to 24, two or three years where it was what ami I going to do kind of thing. It was hard,” Richards said of his journey from the football field to the kitchen. “This job made it official. It gave me a platform to do what I wanted. I would say whenever I got this job, I decided this could be something in the future. I always thought I would give this a shot. I’ll do this because I love it. If the money doesn’t work out I’ll do something else.”

He began working at Anchuca in July of 2016 and has worked to leave his mark on the kitchen. He doesn’t cook from recipes, but instead experiments and tries new things as he works to add his own flair to the food.

Richards said he now loves what he does and is looking to the future.

Maybe that will include opening his own restaurant, maybe not, but he said he is not ruling anything out.

“After two seasons I was pretty much done from football and I had to redefine my life. It was hard. It was definitely a down time when you do a lot of thinking. It worked out. I found a passion for food. I met my wife. Everything has been great,” Richards said. “I am in the phase now where I am still leaving my options open, but I really love what I do here. I just hope it leads to something where I can do this the rest of my life.”