In the driver’s seat
Bryan Williams has brought to an end the era of losing to his dad on the basketball court.
That doesn’t mean his father – Mead boys basketball coach Glenn Williams, incidentally – hasn’t sought out a sport in which he can one-up his son.
“Pickleball,” said the younger Williams, a dynamic senior point guard at Whitworth who has led the Pirates to a 14-1 record this season. “I love pickleball. We put (a court) in our basketball court about eight years ago at our new house. Recently, we got into pickleball – me, my dad and my family.
“I’m super competitive, and so is my dad. When he gets a chance to beat me at something, he jumps at it. Racket sports, he’s better than I am. I’ve broken a few rackets.”
Williams’ dad also played for the Pirates, and Williams said the two of them enjoy a little verbal jawing about who was the better college player.
“It’s a fun way of sharing stories,” he said. “It’s definitely been a good way for us to connect and bond some more.”
With his dad coaching from the sidelines, Williams developed his point-guard skills at Mead running the floor alongside former Gonzaga star and current NBA rookie Adam Morrison. College coaches gravitated to Mead games to watch Morrison, but Whitworth coach Jim Hayford’s eyes fixated on “the skinny redhead.”
Following Hayford’s successful recruiting pitch, Williams took over as Whitworth’s starting point guard before his freshman season began. He’s started 89 of 90 games since.
“When Bryan Williams arrived on campus, we gave him the steering wheel to the team,” Hayford said. “Every year he’s had an excellent year. He keeps getting better and better.”
Lanky and 6-foot-1, Williams leads the nation in assists per game (8.2) at the NCAA Division III level. He’s also an efficient scorer – 10.6 points per game and a .390 3-point shooting percentage – and is fourth in the Northwest Conference with 1.79 steals and 33.8 minutes per game.
“I think if you called every coach in the conference, they’d tell you they try to keep the ball out of his hands,” Hayford said. “That’s a statement about how good he is and how he makes it happen.”
Some might suggest that Williams’ emergence at Whitworth has pulled him out from under Morrison’s shadow. Williams countered, however, that the attention Morrison garnered in high school pointed a spotlight at Williams and his other teammates.
It’s a little surreal, Williams admitted, when he thinks of the success his ex-teammate is enjoying.
“Everyone on the (Mead) team grew up with him, and there’s some degree of disbelief of how strange it is,” Williams said. “I mean, we were sitting in high school playing video games in each other’s houses. We couldn’t imagine he’d be on the cover of a video game someday.
“For the people around him, most of all we saw he believed he could get to that level. And with each passing year, it was becoming more and more of a reality.”
Williams isn’t sure what his basketball future entails. Graduating this spring with a business management degree, he said he’ll be looking for a job. He added that he might like to assist his dad at Mead, if time allows. In the future he’d like to form a business partnership with his brother, Eric, an architect.
It’s clear he’d like to continue his basketball career beyond this year, but he’s trying to be a realist. Hayford believes Williams’ teammate, England native James Jones, can go back and play professionally in his home country. Former Pirate standout Eric Avery is playing in Germany. If Williams is going to continue his career, he’ll likely have to pursue it overseas.
“If something presented itself, it’s something I’d look at,” Williams said. “But if not, it’s the rec league for me.”