- Jul 18, 2000
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Brings up some of the points as to why I think labeling kids at a young age can REALLY screw them up
ESPN The Magazine: Brain Storm
by Bruce Feldman
They call him a genius now. They say his football IQ is so high he can see a play unfold before the snap. They claim he'll revolutionize the safety position the way LT reinvented linebacker. Crank up the hype. He won the Bronko Nagurski Award as the best defensive player in college. He led Oklahoma to a national championship. And later this month, the six-foot, 221-pound All-America will be the highest-drafted safety in more than a decade.
But all the props slide right off Roy Williams. This is what sticks: "They used to call me stupid."
Stupid. He once carried the word like a tattoo stamped across his forehead. Carried it for years without speaking about it. Now Roy Williams tells his story for the first time, because there are millions of kids out there stuck with bum labels, brimming with rage and shame and uncorked potential.
He says this one's for them.
Ever felt stupid? Roy Williams remembers the time and place. He was 7 years old, lying in bed, when the phone rang. His mother picked it up. He could tell she was listening intently because she responded only with with yesses and nos. Then her voice softened and trailed off. I'm in trouble, Roy thought. Five minutes later, she and his dad were sitting on the end of his bed. "Son," she said, "we have to talk."
They broke it to him gently. The school had called about a test he'd taken. He was going to be put in some special classes. All Roy knew was what the other kids would call him. Stupid.
Roy's parents had been told their boy was slow. A slow reader. A slow learner. Nothing would come easy. The school hung a tag on him: Resource Student. That's what they call certain special ed students in California. He would be in regular classes but he'd get an extra period of help. Everyone knew what it meant, though, Roy thought: Stupid me.
He played his part. Snarly and withdrawn, Roy threw rocks at windows, snagged hubcaps off cars, bugged teachers, blew off homework. "When I first met him, I didn't like him at all," says Griff Wrench, a resource specialist in the Union City, Calif., school system. "He always seemed to be angry."
That's because he was, mostly at the boy inside his own skin. "Knucklehead," he called himself. What was the point of trying? "I couldn't pay attention," he remembers. "I got frustrated at every little thing. It was always, Forget it, I give up."
Roy's parents, Deborah and Roy Sr., tried to push their ball of rage into sports. Baseball? Too boring. Basketball? Too soft. Then he discovered football, where he could hit as hard as he wanted. As a 9-year-old fullback, Roy once pounded into a kid hard enough to knock him cold. As soon as the boy came to, Roy's mom made her son apologize.
By the fifth grade, kids in his Bay Area neighborhood had nicknamed him "The Hammer." Better than being called Stupid, even if frightened parents told their sons they weren't allowed to play with the Williams boy. "If Roy got his hands on you, he might break your leg," says Damian Mackey, a childhood friend and former OU teammate.
Roy continued to play as he grew older, but he didn't inspire anyone to envision the next Ronnie Lott. To look at him as a high school freshman was to see a 5'5" DB who lumbered a 5.5 40. Roy could hit, but he refused to discipline himself as a player. One game late in the season, his penchant for taking bad angles and his blind lust for the kill shot finally got to his father. Big Roy climbed down from the bleachers, stomped over to the James Logan High sideline and asked the coach if he could speak with his son.
Big Roy had been a star prep receiver in Southern California but got married at 19 and only got to play junior college football. Now he looked Little Roy in the eye and let fly. "Son, if you're gonna do something, don't (bleeping) do it halfway," he said. Little Roy began to make tackle after tackle, and led Logan to its only victory of the year. His teammates jumped on each other in wild celebration. Little Roy stayed off to the side, and vowed silently never to do anything halfway again.
But Roy was still too scared to try in the classroom. Reading was difficult for him. Words seemed jumbled, and it was tough for him to remember what he'd just read. When it came to football, though, he soaked up everything. He could see it all unfold like it was happening in slow motion.
Logan opened the 1995 season -- Roy's first with the varsity -- against mighty Skyline High of Oakland. The Bay Area powerhouse was led by blue-chipper LaCorey Collins, a fluid 6'4", 215-pound receiver who was being hailed as the next Jerry Rice. Sure enough, from the opening kickoff Collins was eating up the Logan D. Late in the first half, Collins caught a slant pass, turned upfield and raced toward the goal line. Skyline players and fans were screaming, "Go LaCorey! Go LaCorey! Go La--" when suddenly the entire crowd let out a collective Ooooooooh! Out of nowhere, Little Roy crashed into Collins with such force that the receiver's body helicoptered through the air, his cleats saluting the sky. Logan coach Neal Fromson remembers the two words that came to his mind: "Holy s--." That was just the beginning. Roy unloaded three more "holy s--" hits before the game was over.
That night after the game, on a worn-out dirt field in Oakland, Roy saw his coach and his parents huddling. They were talking about him again, just like when he was a kid. This time, though, it was about how smart he was -- and where those smarts could take him. Fromson realized that colleges were going to come running for Little Roy. The kid had a rare gift, a sixth sense about where a play was going and where he needed to be to drop the hammer.
But unless he faced his classroom demons, Williams wasn't going anywhere. The choice was his -- and he still hated every minute of school. This time, though, he didn't need a lecture from his dad. "You really need this," he told himself. For the first time, he saw he could be something other than trouble. "You can get a scholarship," Roy thought. "You need help. Go get it."
Twice a week, Williams met with tutor Judy Peeler, a teacher who lived 40 minutes away. For two hours, it was Ms. Peeler, Roy and a glass of water. Reading still was hard, but day after day, month after month, Roy gritted his teeth and pressed on. The transformation at the end of his sophomore year was startling. Roy went from getting D's to C's and B's. More incredible was the change in his attitude. No more troublemaking. "It was like the story of the ugly duckling that became the swan," says Fromson.
Williams fell short on his first try at the ACT. Back to the tutor. He didn't make it the second time, either, but he didn't quit. He kept sitting at that table with the tutor and a glass of water and a textbook. The third try, he made it. Big Roy baked a giant cheesecake and Little Roy delivered it personally to Ms. Peeler.
With his ACT scores in hand, Pac-10 scouts now saw Little Roy as a future All-America.
But Oklahoma had an in -- Roy's aunt, Valetta Robinson, who worked in the OU athletics dining hall. One afternoon, she stopped then-Sooner assistant Joe Dickinson as he went through the line. "My nephew in California is someone you need to recruit," she said. Dickinson didn't take the tip too seriously. The next day, as Dickinson moved his tray through the line, Robinson handed him a copy of the recruiting magazine SuperPrep. "That," she said, pointing to the cover, "is my nephew."
Still, Dickinson couldn't have dreamed that Ms. V's nephew would blossom into the best player OU had had in 25 years. Williams is among Oklahoma's leaders in every defensive category -- tackles, sacks, INTs, passes defensed. When the Sooners ambushed Florida State in the 2001 national title game, Williams led the assault. "I've never seen a guy dominate and control a game like he does defensively," says OU coach Bob Stoops. "I've heard from NFL personnel directors, and they say they've never seen a guy who can do the things Roy can do."
Division I programs are spilling over with studs who can blaze 4.48 40s or go sideline to sideline before quarterbacks can clear their throats. What makes Williams special, though, can't be measured with a stopwatch or in a weight room. Coaches call it football IQ. All players study film. The special ones are wired to have a hair-trigger response to the chaos of 21 other men banging into one another. They process enormous amounts of information in a blink and act a step before anyone else does. This enables 4.7 guys to play at 4.4, and 4.4 guys to be unstoppable. Aeneas Williams and Jerry Rice and Zach Thomas have it. So does Roy Williams. "Sometimes it does feel like everything slows down and I feel untouchable," he says. "It's like a movie when you know something's about to happen."
Cut to Oklahoma vs. Texas, Oct. 6, 2001, at the Cotton Bowl. Just 2:06 remaining. OU clings to a 7-3 lead. The Longhorns are pinned inside their 3-yard line. As UT quarterback Chris Simms barks signals, Williams is lurking, five yards across from him. Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops has called "Slamdogs," a blitz in which Williams shoots the guard-tackle gap. "Don't leave your feet, Roy," Stoops had hollered. "Do not jump!"
Williams means to obey his coach. Really he does. And then, right before the snap, he closes his eyes. In his mind, he sees the gap spring open and a blocking back step up to level him. Williams refocuses and glances into the backfield as Simms takes the snap. The play unfolds as Williams has envisioned it -- almost. Tailback Brett Robin tries to cut him. But Simms' three-step drop becomes a one-step drop as the pocket collapses. Williams catapults into the air, up and over Robin, as if he is some dupe in a Jackie Chan flick. As Williams flies over the blocker, he stretches out and bangs into the quarterback's shoulder. The ball pops into the hands of linebacker Teddy Lehman, whose two-yard return gives Oklahoma a 13-3 lead. Williams then makes the tackle on the kickoff, and picks off Simms on the next play. Game over.
Williams played at OU as a hybrid linebacker/corner, the perfect antidote to the surge of spread-passing offenses. That's what has NFL teams salivating. "Teams can line him up all over the field and disguise all kinds of coverages and defenses," says longtime NFL defensive coordinator Herb Paterra, who helped train Williams for the predraft Combine. "This is a really special kid." Paterra is talking about more than Williams' on-field play. "He's the happiest, brightest young man I've ever been around," says Bob Stoops.
Whatever happened to that Resource kid who threw rocks at windows? His anger disappeared as soon as he stopped calling himself stupid. These days, Williams hides behind his dimples and grins at this football genius stuff. He loves the irony that has become his life, that the guy everyone raves about because he can process things so quickly was once told his mind worked too slowly.
He is leaving OU early because he feels like he's ready. Someday, he says, he will build a youth center for troubled children in Oklahoma. "For kids like me," he says. "Some kids just need that guidance -- a pat on the back to let them know everything will be all right."
Pretty smart, don't you think?
This article appears in the April 15 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
ESPN The Magazine: Brain Storm
by Bruce Feldman
They call him a genius now. They say his football IQ is so high he can see a play unfold before the snap. They claim he'll revolutionize the safety position the way LT reinvented linebacker. Crank up the hype. He won the Bronko Nagurski Award as the best defensive player in college. He led Oklahoma to a national championship. And later this month, the six-foot, 221-pound All-America will be the highest-drafted safety in more than a decade.
But all the props slide right off Roy Williams. This is what sticks: "They used to call me stupid."
Stupid. He once carried the word like a tattoo stamped across his forehead. Carried it for years without speaking about it. Now Roy Williams tells his story for the first time, because there are millions of kids out there stuck with bum labels, brimming with rage and shame and uncorked potential.
He says this one's for them.
Ever felt stupid? Roy Williams remembers the time and place. He was 7 years old, lying in bed, when the phone rang. His mother picked it up. He could tell she was listening intently because she responded only with with yesses and nos. Then her voice softened and trailed off. I'm in trouble, Roy thought. Five minutes later, she and his dad were sitting on the end of his bed. "Son," she said, "we have to talk."
They broke it to him gently. The school had called about a test he'd taken. He was going to be put in some special classes. All Roy knew was what the other kids would call him. Stupid.
Roy's parents had been told their boy was slow. A slow reader. A slow learner. Nothing would come easy. The school hung a tag on him: Resource Student. That's what they call certain special ed students in California. He would be in regular classes but he'd get an extra period of help. Everyone knew what it meant, though, Roy thought: Stupid me.
He played his part. Snarly and withdrawn, Roy threw rocks at windows, snagged hubcaps off cars, bugged teachers, blew off homework. "When I first met him, I didn't like him at all," says Griff Wrench, a resource specialist in the Union City, Calif., school system. "He always seemed to be angry."
That's because he was, mostly at the boy inside his own skin. "Knucklehead," he called himself. What was the point of trying? "I couldn't pay attention," he remembers. "I got frustrated at every little thing. It was always, Forget it, I give up."
Roy's parents, Deborah and Roy Sr., tried to push their ball of rage into sports. Baseball? Too boring. Basketball? Too soft. Then he discovered football, where he could hit as hard as he wanted. As a 9-year-old fullback, Roy once pounded into a kid hard enough to knock him cold. As soon as the boy came to, Roy's mom made her son apologize.
By the fifth grade, kids in his Bay Area neighborhood had nicknamed him "The Hammer." Better than being called Stupid, even if frightened parents told their sons they weren't allowed to play with the Williams boy. "If Roy got his hands on you, he might break your leg," says Damian Mackey, a childhood friend and former OU teammate.
Roy continued to play as he grew older, but he didn't inspire anyone to envision the next Ronnie Lott. To look at him as a high school freshman was to see a 5'5" DB who lumbered a 5.5 40. Roy could hit, but he refused to discipline himself as a player. One game late in the season, his penchant for taking bad angles and his blind lust for the kill shot finally got to his father. Big Roy climbed down from the bleachers, stomped over to the James Logan High sideline and asked the coach if he could speak with his son.
Big Roy had been a star prep receiver in Southern California but got married at 19 and only got to play junior college football. Now he looked Little Roy in the eye and let fly. "Son, if you're gonna do something, don't (bleeping) do it halfway," he said. Little Roy began to make tackle after tackle, and led Logan to its only victory of the year. His teammates jumped on each other in wild celebration. Little Roy stayed off to the side, and vowed silently never to do anything halfway again.
But Roy was still too scared to try in the classroom. Reading was difficult for him. Words seemed jumbled, and it was tough for him to remember what he'd just read. When it came to football, though, he soaked up everything. He could see it all unfold like it was happening in slow motion.
Logan opened the 1995 season -- Roy's first with the varsity -- against mighty Skyline High of Oakland. The Bay Area powerhouse was led by blue-chipper LaCorey Collins, a fluid 6'4", 215-pound receiver who was being hailed as the next Jerry Rice. Sure enough, from the opening kickoff Collins was eating up the Logan D. Late in the first half, Collins caught a slant pass, turned upfield and raced toward the goal line. Skyline players and fans were screaming, "Go LaCorey! Go LaCorey! Go La--" when suddenly the entire crowd let out a collective Ooooooooh! Out of nowhere, Little Roy crashed into Collins with such force that the receiver's body helicoptered through the air, his cleats saluting the sky. Logan coach Neal Fromson remembers the two words that came to his mind: "Holy s--." That was just the beginning. Roy unloaded three more "holy s--" hits before the game was over.
That night after the game, on a worn-out dirt field in Oakland, Roy saw his coach and his parents huddling. They were talking about him again, just like when he was a kid. This time, though, it was about how smart he was -- and where those smarts could take him. Fromson realized that colleges were going to come running for Little Roy. The kid had a rare gift, a sixth sense about where a play was going and where he needed to be to drop the hammer.
But unless he faced his classroom demons, Williams wasn't going anywhere. The choice was his -- and he still hated every minute of school. This time, though, he didn't need a lecture from his dad. "You really need this," he told himself. For the first time, he saw he could be something other than trouble. "You can get a scholarship," Roy thought. "You need help. Go get it."
Twice a week, Williams met with tutor Judy Peeler, a teacher who lived 40 minutes away. For two hours, it was Ms. Peeler, Roy and a glass of water. Reading still was hard, but day after day, month after month, Roy gritted his teeth and pressed on. The transformation at the end of his sophomore year was startling. Roy went from getting D's to C's and B's. More incredible was the change in his attitude. No more troublemaking. "It was like the story of the ugly duckling that became the swan," says Fromson.
Williams fell short on his first try at the ACT. Back to the tutor. He didn't make it the second time, either, but he didn't quit. He kept sitting at that table with the tutor and a glass of water and a textbook. The third try, he made it. Big Roy baked a giant cheesecake and Little Roy delivered it personally to Ms. Peeler.
With his ACT scores in hand, Pac-10 scouts now saw Little Roy as a future All-America.
But Oklahoma had an in -- Roy's aunt, Valetta Robinson, who worked in the OU athletics dining hall. One afternoon, she stopped then-Sooner assistant Joe Dickinson as he went through the line. "My nephew in California is someone you need to recruit," she said. Dickinson didn't take the tip too seriously. The next day, as Dickinson moved his tray through the line, Robinson handed him a copy of the recruiting magazine SuperPrep. "That," she said, pointing to the cover, "is my nephew."
Still, Dickinson couldn't have dreamed that Ms. V's nephew would blossom into the best player OU had had in 25 years. Williams is among Oklahoma's leaders in every defensive category -- tackles, sacks, INTs, passes defensed. When the Sooners ambushed Florida State in the 2001 national title game, Williams led the assault. "I've never seen a guy dominate and control a game like he does defensively," says OU coach Bob Stoops. "I've heard from NFL personnel directors, and they say they've never seen a guy who can do the things Roy can do."
Division I programs are spilling over with studs who can blaze 4.48 40s or go sideline to sideline before quarterbacks can clear their throats. What makes Williams special, though, can't be measured with a stopwatch or in a weight room. Coaches call it football IQ. All players study film. The special ones are wired to have a hair-trigger response to the chaos of 21 other men banging into one another. They process enormous amounts of information in a blink and act a step before anyone else does. This enables 4.7 guys to play at 4.4, and 4.4 guys to be unstoppable. Aeneas Williams and Jerry Rice and Zach Thomas have it. So does Roy Williams. "Sometimes it does feel like everything slows down and I feel untouchable," he says. "It's like a movie when you know something's about to happen."
Cut to Oklahoma vs. Texas, Oct. 6, 2001, at the Cotton Bowl. Just 2:06 remaining. OU clings to a 7-3 lead. The Longhorns are pinned inside their 3-yard line. As UT quarterback Chris Simms barks signals, Williams is lurking, five yards across from him. Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops has called "Slamdogs," a blitz in which Williams shoots the guard-tackle gap. "Don't leave your feet, Roy," Stoops had hollered. "Do not jump!"
Williams means to obey his coach. Really he does. And then, right before the snap, he closes his eyes. In his mind, he sees the gap spring open and a blocking back step up to level him. Williams refocuses and glances into the backfield as Simms takes the snap. The play unfolds as Williams has envisioned it -- almost. Tailback Brett Robin tries to cut him. But Simms' three-step drop becomes a one-step drop as the pocket collapses. Williams catapults into the air, up and over Robin, as if he is some dupe in a Jackie Chan flick. As Williams flies over the blocker, he stretches out and bangs into the quarterback's shoulder. The ball pops into the hands of linebacker Teddy Lehman, whose two-yard return gives Oklahoma a 13-3 lead. Williams then makes the tackle on the kickoff, and picks off Simms on the next play. Game over.
Williams played at OU as a hybrid linebacker/corner, the perfect antidote to the surge of spread-passing offenses. That's what has NFL teams salivating. "Teams can line him up all over the field and disguise all kinds of coverages and defenses," says longtime NFL defensive coordinator Herb Paterra, who helped train Williams for the predraft Combine. "This is a really special kid." Paterra is talking about more than Williams' on-field play. "He's the happiest, brightest young man I've ever been around," says Bob Stoops.
Whatever happened to that Resource kid who threw rocks at windows? His anger disappeared as soon as he stopped calling himself stupid. These days, Williams hides behind his dimples and grins at this football genius stuff. He loves the irony that has become his life, that the guy everyone raves about because he can process things so quickly was once told his mind worked too slowly.
He is leaving OU early because he feels like he's ready. Someday, he says, he will build a youth center for troubled children in Oklahoma. "For kids like me," he says. "Some kids just need that guidance -- a pat on the back to let them know everything will be all right."
Pretty smart, don't you think?
This article appears in the April 15 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
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