Another Great Rags to Riches Story

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Friday, 06/17/05

 

Titans' Williams is driven to succeed

 

Lineman has overcome many of hardships in his life

 

By JESSICA HOPP

Staff Writer

 

 

He calls it Old Blue.

 

It is a vintage 1974 Oldsmobile Delta 88 convertible, a priceless find from amid heaps of rusted junkyard scrap that had long been neglected and forgotten.

 

To Titans offensive lineman Todd Williams, it is a metaphor for his life. Every scratch on its chassis is a story. A permanent reminder of the past. Something that can be hidden, touched up, but never removed.

 

Once abandoned as useless metal, Old Blue has been restored by Williams' careful hand.

 

It runs like he now lives, with a verve that defies its former disrepair.

 

"People looked at me as a piece of junk. They threw me away," Williams said. "I saw the car in the same situation. I was like, 'Man, I can restore that car, make it look like a thing of beauty,' and that's what I am in the process of doing myself — restoring myself.

 

"I am really letting God do some things in my life and really just trying to get myself together, because I went through a lot and I really want to revamp some things. I am thankful that football has been an outlet so far."

 

Gearing up

 

It is football that brought Williams between the white lines long after he had veered off course. It helped him overcome abandonment by his parents, the death of his grandmother, an adolescence living alone on the streets jacking cars and swiping purses to survive.

 

It has been a lifetime full of challenges for Williams. The next one, although not as great as some in the past, will determine the path of his future. Williams is finally getting his chance to become an NFL starter.

 

In his first two years with the Titans, the seventh-round draft pick out of Florida State saw action in only six games. All of his minutes came last season when he filled in for the injured Fred Miller.

 

This year Miller and offensive lineman Jason Mathews are no longer part of the team. In addition, second-year player Jacob Bell is out with a knee injury. As a result, Williams is getting his chance to prove he belongs.

 

During eight days of organized team activity this month and last, Williams has been running with the first team at right tackle.

 

It is an important chance for Williams, who has not received an overwhelming vote of confidence from the coaching staff in previous years. With rookies Michael Roos, David Stewart, and Daniel Loper lining up behind Williams for their shots, now is the time for the third-year pro to cross the threshold from bystander to playmaker.

 

Williams is being analyzed and scrutinized. No longer is it about showing promise, Williams needs to show he can compete or faces the possibility of being cut.

 

Titans offensive line coach Mike Munchak said Williams needs to learn how to use his large frame by honing his technique. Will he be able to make the needed adjustments?

 

"He's at the point in his third year where he pretty much has to," Munchak said. "We kind of babied him along a little bit, but we had Fred Miller and we had Jason Mathews so there was really never a hurry to get him in there. Now it's just time. The numbers have worked the way they are and he is here for a reason. He's done a lot of great things. He's a great story what he's overcome in his life, and now we will see if he's ready to be a starter or not."

 

Running on empty

 

At 15, Williams was not ready for anything that was thrown his way. After the death of his grandmother he had nowhere to turn. His mother abandoned him before his 10th birthday. His father, who had never really been a part of his life, never got the chance — he was shot and killed when Williams was a teen.

 

With the threat of foster care looming, Williams ran away. From the streets of Bradenton, Fla., to a tough part of Miami where he fended for himself, drifting in and out of the occasional boys home or juvenile detention facility.

 

"I was robbing, I was stealing people's money, jacking cars and taking them to swap meets and car shops for a couple hundred bucks here a couple hundred bucks there," Williams said. "I was committing real violent acts of crimes. I was living on the streets off and on for three or four years. It was just chaos."

 

It could have been all that became of him. But one day, while in a juvenile facility, it struck him that there was something more.

 

"I got tired of people telling me I was never going to be able to make it," Williams said. "Here I am believing that when I have never given myself a legitimate shot of really working hard to make it. So I got tired of believing that and I tried."

 

Academic drive

 

The day he received his report card, Williams stood in Joanne VanEska's office with a hopeful, expecting look on his face. VanEska was the manager at Oakmeade Apartments where Williams moved when he returned to Bradenton. His cousin's father had signed the lease, but Williams lived there alone, working jobs at Winn Dixie and as a short order cook to pay the rent while attending Southeast High.

 

Although Williams was not yet 18, VanEska turned her head, knowing that this was his shot to make it. As time passed she came to fill the role of mother in his life. She held out her hand, "What did you get on your report card?"

 

Those grades were his saving grace. They helped keep Williams on the Southeast football team even when his angry outbursts and violent actions suggested to Coach Paul Maechtle the team might be better off without its starting lineman.

 

"They kept saying, 'When are they going to send that kid out?' " Maechtle said. "I just couldn't do that. I felt like he was going to make it someday."

 

Green light

 

In Williams' mind, that someday came in the form of standardized test scores. The day he discovered he had gotten marks on his SAT and ACT that made him eligible to play Division I football was the day he felt his past was finally behind him.

 

Williams would be able to play football for Coach Bobby Bowden and Florida State University.

 

"That was the major defining point in my life," Williams said. "I saw that I could learn, that I could take a test and that maybe I can go on to college. And going to college at FSU was a big step because it wasn't nothing small time and I had to believe that I could do it."

 

Five players from Southeast High signed Division I letters-of-intent that year. At the bottom of the gold trimmed commitment paper there were two lines — one for the student's signature and one for that of the parent. Todd Williams signed both lines. He thought nothing of it.

 

"I had to be my own man in a sense," Williams said. "I had to make decisions in my own life and I felt like I was my mom and my dad. I had to step up and do it. And when I signed it I was like, 'I am my own guardian.' "

 

Cruise control

 

Clinton Purvis remembers his smile. There was no fear in his eyes. There was no uncertainly hidden in the strong, dark recesses of his face. There was only that smile. For Purvis, the chaplain at Florida State , that carefree grin atop the massive 6-foot, 5-inch frame was a sign that this freshman was special.

 

As he came to know more about Williams' story, he realized he was right. By the time Williams was a senior he was named third-team All-American and first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference by the NFL Draft Report. His final season he started every game at left guard, allowing only two sacks and in a potent, past-minded offense.

 

He graduated with degrees in criminal justice and sociology, and was drafted by the Titans.

 

"He is one of the rare gifts of God to our community," Purvis said. "He doesn't use what happened to him as a pity party nor does he use it as an anchor that holds him back. He uses it as a sail to go on to places he could never have gone before.

 

"He's not perfect, nobody is, but he has got a pure heart."

 

Overdrive

 

It is that heart, that drive, that Williams will be relying upon now in the next chapter of his life. After three years, he is starting to understand what it means to be a Titan.

 

"I haven't really been feeling a part and being out there on field the little bit I was last year it made me feel a part," Williams said. "Now on the off-season it has given me something to work toward."

 

He has already slimmed down, something Munchak said is important for his continued improvement. Since last season Williams said he has lost 15 pounds bringing him down to 320. The next step is demonstrating his worth.

 

"I think that's where we are right now," said Titans offensive guard Zach Piller said. "Todd knows what he is doing more than the rookies do. At this point it's his job and his big chance. He's got a golden opportunity so we'll see what happens."

 

He hopes to prove himself a great find. Just like Old Blue. •

[MikesVikes]

That's a great story.

 

The adversity he's had in his life will come in handy this year while playing for the Titans.

[spain]

The adversity he's had in his life will come in handy this year while playing for the Titans.

 

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:doah:

 

What is odd is that the Titans Keith Bullock was also a thow away kid in New York. He was taken in by a friends parents while his mother was all coked out for several years. How some of these guys make it is incredible...

[Ursa Majoris]

:doah:

 

What is odd is that the Titans Keith Bullock was also a thow away kid in New York.  He was taken in by a friends parents while his mother was all coked out for several years.  How some of these guys make it is incredible...

 

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Check out Bruce Bowen of San Antonio in the NBA.

[seminoles]

Check out Bruce Bowen of San Antonio in the NBA.

 

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i know he adopted but what else?

[Ursa Majoris]

i know he adopted but what else?

 

846086[/snapback]

 

 

 

 

One of the announcers on the NBA finals was saying that Bowen was adopted by a group of neighbors as opposed to just one, he had an alcoholic dad and a crack ho mom. He was eventually raised primarily by one of the neighbors. When he was of college age, the entire neighborhood banded together to raise the money to send him to college.

 

Since he became wealthy, mom and dad have crawled out of woodwork to try to make contact, but he won't have anything to do with them - rightly. However, none of those neighbors is now in need.......