Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992 TAG: 9203170049
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANDI RIERDEN THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As the oldest in the room, he said, he often counsels the others, telling them that selling or using drugs is not the answer. A good, solid education, he reminds them, is the only thing that matters.
"But then," he said, "they look at me as if to say: `Hey, look at what you had, and look at you now. So who are you to be talking anyway?' "
Williams, 34 years old, a former All-America basketball player and starting forward with the New York Knicks, is now serving 3 1/2 years for second-degree assault on his girlfriend.
He has spent the past two years in and out of jail and in a drug rehabilitation program. He was stabbed during an argument with his girlfriend in November and is confined temporarily to a wheelchair as a result of surgical complications following the incident.
In a recent interview at the prison, Williams described his life as a kaleidoscope of triumphs and shattered dreams. The man known to his fans as Sly Williams grew up in New Haven poised to play basketball, he said, with little interest in his education or in confronting his personal problems. He attributed his descent to his inability to escape self-inflicted burdens and a lack of childhood role models.
"By the time I walked away from the NBA," he said, "I had realized that though I was 29 years old, I was, in fact, a baby in a man's body."
For decades the world of professional basketball has served as an attractive inducement for young men in city neighborhoods who see scholarships and national television exposure as an opportunity to overcome economic and social limitations. But the successes, few as they are, often overshadow the tragedies like that of Williams, who forfeited his future by investing too much of his talents into becoming a big-time ballplayer.
Though there are no precise statistics and few methods to track athletes once they leave college or the professional leagues, a significant number return home undereducated and with no alternative career goals. Richard Lapchick, director of the Center for Sports and Society at Northeastern University in Boston and an expert on the status of minority athletes, said the former ballplayers often end up in jail or in trouble with drugs because they cannot adjust to mainstream society.
Despite efforts in recent years by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to upgrade academic standards for players and by high school and college athletic officials to stress the importance of finishing college and formulating career goals, he said, "there remains this prevailing belief in black communities that you can make it to the pros when, in fact, the odds of that happening, depending upon what sport you're talking about, are about 1 in 10,000."
A study released last year by the NCAA, which focused on 85 institutions with large sports programs, found that 26.6 percent of black athletes graduated from those colleges, compared with 52.2 percent of white players and 45.7 percent for all athletes.
The dropout rate for white athletes decreased as they progressed through school, while 38.3 percent of black student athletes left school in their fourth or fifth years without graduating, and nearly as many dropped out during their first two years.
Williams, who was raised in a four-room apartment in New Haven with his mother and 11 brothers and sisters, said his family was supported by a monthly welfare check. As a youngster, he said, he learned how to play basketball in an empty lot, using discarded metal barrels as hoops. When he made the varsity basketball team in his freshman year at high school, he thought his future was sealed.
"I had it in my mind that one day I would play for the New York Knicks," said Williams, who is 6 foot 7.
"I knew that they earned a lot of money, and that would allow me to take care of my family. I was determined to follow the right path and meet the right people, so I could attain that goal."
Though he maintained a C-plus average in high school, Williams said that his obsession with basketball overshadowed everything else in his life. He recalled that the seduction of the crowds that attended his games and the attention he received from the local media were overpowering.
"I always wanted to be wanted," he said. "And here I had this gift, where I could walk out on a court, shoot baskets and put smiles on everybody's faces. It was hypnotic."
By the end of his senior year in 1976, Williams had become New Haven's hometown hero. He had become an all-American and was largely responsible for Lee High School's state's championship. Recruiters from more than 300 colleges were knocking at his door, he said.
His troubles began, he said, while he was attending the University of Rhode Island, where he had received a four-year athletic scholarship. Not only was he not prepared for college-level academics, Williams said, he also felt obligated to the university's athletic officials, who had given him a major role in shaping the team and raising its standards.
"In their eyes I came for the athletic program, not academics," he said. "And they did everything in their power to make certain I'd be able to play."
But after playing three seasons with Rhode Island, Williams was placed on academic probation at the end of his junior year. Soon after, he said, he received notice from the National Basketball Association that he had been drafted by the Knicks. At the age of 20 he had reached his goal in life.
"It was all happening so fast," he recalled. "Here, I'd never had a job before and was now making over $100,000. I had no self-discipline and had stopped growing emotionally. I had thrown my education out the window and had gotten used to thinking that as long as I played basketball, all my problems would go away."
He was plagued with psychological problems and a faltering marriage, Williams said, and his career with the Knicks was rocked by a series of suspensions, fines and disputes with the team's management. Despite his problems he continued to excel on the court. In four seasons with the Knicks he recorded a total of 2,788 points and 1,054 rebounds.
In 1983 the Knicks traded Williams to the Atlanta Hawks; he signed a contract with the team for $450,000 a year. But by then, he said, basketball, too, had become a source of stress. Lacking negotiation or business skills, he said, he could not adjust to the pressures of his career. He said the teams reneged on their promises to let him play a minimum length of time in each game. In addition, he said, he continued to fuel his reputation as a renegade by missing practices and games.
"Everybody knew that I had this attitude," he said. "Why I acted like I did I just can't explain."
At the end of his second season with the Hawks, Williams signed a contract with the Boston Celtics. But when he was allowed to play only four minutes a game, he said, he left the Celtics after one season, feeling bitter and frustrated. In 1987 he left the NBA to play for a professional team in Spain.
While he was there, Williams said, he received word that his brother had committed suicide after shooting his son. He said the family tragedy, along with a pending divorce, psychological problems and disillusionment over the business aspects of professional sports prompted him to leave professional basketball and return to New Haven in 1988.
But once he came home, those who once rallied around him now avoided him or expressed disappointment over his decision, he said. Although he felt he had eliminated a great burden from his life and could now make up for lost time, he said, "everybody still saw me as Sly Williams the great basketball player, not this lost man who was destroying himself slowly but surely."
Because he lacked business skills, Williams said, he spent freely much of what he earned, yet he remains uncertain about what happened to the money he invested through financial advisers in the mid-1980s.
Within two years of leaving the NBA, Williams said, his money ran out, and he could not find a job.
"Most employers told me that because I'd once made a half a million dollars a year, they didn't feel I'd be satisfied making $6 an hour," he said.
Except for his children and his girlfriend, Shirley Massey, he said, he isolated himself and often had suicidal thoughts. Financial difficulties and substance abuse led to arguments between Williams and Massey, he said, and the couple's arguments sometimes became violent.
In addition to his current prison term, Williams was convicted on a prior assault charge involving Massey and sentenced to three months in prison and to a drug treatment program. Massey is caring for Williams' two children from a former marriage, he said, adding that they are his only visitors.
In 1985 the Center for Sports in Society founded the National Consortium for Academics and Sports in an effort to prevent young athletes from dropping out of college and to urge those who leave before graduating to return after playing professionally to complete their education. Seventy institutions now participate in the consortium. "We've come a long way since Sly Williams' time," said Lapchick.
"But we still have a long road ahead of us. At least now many kids say they are playing sports to avoid drugs and alcohol and as an opportunity to better their lives. Those are the positive things we hoped would happen."
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB