Former top recruit just looking for shot in NFL
By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports
Willie Williams likes to say that you?re not supposed to live your life with regrets. He clings to this belief, despite knowing the outside world looks at him and thinks he should have many.
?I don?t look at my life with bitterness,? he says. ?I look at it with motivation. This is the bed I made and chose to lay in, so I?m going to have to sleep in it.?
A linebacker who was once widely considered the nation?s best defensive prospect coming out of high school ? in the same year Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson was tabbed as the country?s best prep offensive player ? Williams is less than a week removed from the NFL draft. But rather than sitting in the green room with other celebrated draft picks in New York City on Saturday, he?ll watch with a small collection of family, eating some modest home cooking and hoping that some team, any team, will give him an opportunity to play in the league. According to his college coaches, at least 17 NFL franchises have shown some level of interest. Whether any of them are willing to go further will be one of this draft?s underrated story lines.
In fact, one NFC personnel man said he expects Williams to go undrafted and that the former prep star will be signed as a free agent.
It?s a humble ending to a five-year college career that took him to a handful of schools: Miami (two seasons, one redshirt before transferring), West Los Angeles Community College (one season), Louisville (three games, ending after an arrest for marijuana possession), Division II Glenville State (one semester, before being denied transfer by the NCAA to the West Virginia school), and finally, tiny NAIA school Union College (one season) in Barbourville, Ky.
Indeed, Williams? career has been nothing like many projected. Once considered the next great heir to a Miami linebacker lineage that includes Ray Lewis, Dan Morgan, Jonathan Vilma and D.J. Williams, his arrival with the Hurricanes was merely the first stop in a spiral that ended in the NAIA. Along the way, Williams? painful history became riveting Internet fodder. Websites like Deadspin delighted in his every misstep. Message boards buzzed with each development. Among the lowlights, which Williams openly discusses:
? Eleven arrests in high school, most for petty larceny or burglary.
? A journal in the Miami Herald which spilled wild details of recruiting visits and caught attention from the NCAA.
? A recruiting visit to Florida where Williams discharged fire extinguishers in a hotel and was questioned by police for ?hugging a female student against her will.?
? A transfer out of Miami after failing to crack the starting lineup as a true freshman.
? A traffic stop and arrest for marijuana possession at Louisville that ended in his dismissal from the team.
Looking back on it, Williams is apologetic but accepting, saying immaturity and a lack of patience kept him from making good decisions. He admits that he sometimes wonders what could have been had he stayed at Miami, where he expected to bide his time behind eventual first-round pick Jon Beason at outside linebacker. Instead, he succumbed to friends and some family around him, who expected that he would immediately become a college football star.
?At the time, I made the decision that I thought was best,? Williams says. ?I felt like Miami wasn?t getting 100 percent. I wasn?t 100 percent focused like I thought I should be, being born and raised in Miami, coming out of high school there.?
