Darrius Williams slaps the purple leather sofa with pride.
“This was my bed,” he says.
He then points to the lockers.
“Look, I got plenty of closet space,” he jokes.
It’s an odd scene as Williams touches an upright cooler and says “my refrigerator.”
Williams isn’t just another student.
He is the best basketball player at Morehouse (18-7, 16-2) as the SIAC-leading Maroon Tigers – which both he and his coach believe are good enough to eventually make it to the Division II championship game at Philips Arena -- prepare to take that first step by playing in their conference tournament, which begins this week. Morehouse will play its first game on Thursday.
“It’s his leadership, his calmness, his basketball IQ and his toughness that has put us over the top,” basketball coach Grady Brewer said. “In the past years we’ve had some talent but he’s kind of glued us together with those attributes.”
But Williams, a junior, is more than just a basketball player. He was also one of the school’s best football players. An all-conference safety, he was so good he had a tryout with an NFL team.
So why is he sleeping in a windowless locker room of Forbes Arena with not TV, but with showers and toilets?
This isn’t the life of a two-sport star.
But Williams is all smiles as he walks around “his mansion,” pointing out the benefit of living in a gym: Whenever he got bored in the middle of the night, he could go and shoot jumpers or free throws.
“I knew the Lord would look out for me until something good happened,” he said.
That worked paid off. Williams, a 6-4 guard/forward, leads the SIAC in scoring with an 18 points-per-game average. He’s also his team’s leading rebounder with 8.3 per game. He was named the conference's newcomer of the year on Monday and Brewer was named coach of the year.
Not bad for a guy that was discovered in a tryout.
Not bad for a guy who spent the night in his car before the tryout.
Williams grew up in Detroit in the 6 Mile Rd. area, enjoying sports.
His grandmother lived up the street from his mom and dad. When Williams was two, whenever he’d see his dad reach into the trunk of his car to pull out a basketball, Williams would scoot down the steps of his grandmother’s house and make a bee-line for the ball.
His father, Wendell Nolen, and uncle, Jerome Johnson, taught him how to play.
Williams attended Crockett High School, where he played football and basketball.
He had offers from Big Ten schools in football and MAC schools in basketball. But he enrolled in Harper College, a community school in Illinois, and played football. He left after three semesters and returned home, where he went to work his uncle selling cars.
Morehouse assistant coach Douglas Whittler, a native of Detroit, knew of Williams from his days as a high school player.
When Whittler found out that Williams had returned to Detroit, he suggested he take a look at Morehouse and invited him to an annual spring tryout.
Money had been tight in the Williams’ house because of the economy’s effect on the Detroit auto industry.
On a lark, Williams drove from Detroit to Atlanta for the tryout, spending the night in his car. It’s something he’s had to do a few times since then when dorms rooms or other housing haven’t been available before the beginning of semesters. It’s something he puts up with because he wants to finish his degree in Kinesiology.
“He’s just a tough kid,” Brewer said. “He wants to finish his education and be a good basketball player.”
Williams walked into the gym the next day and put on a show. Every drill, from blocking shots to bringing the ball up the court to hitting mid-range jumpers, resulted in a “Wow.”
Brewer said in his 13 years as a head coach he’s never discovered a player as good as Williams at a tryout.
“You don’t get this type of player walking on,” Brewer said.
Not believing his luck, Brewer double-checked everything about Williams with Whittler: Grades were good, personality was good.
There was still one issue.
Brewer’s team has just 4 ½ scholarships.
He didn’t have as much money as Williams needed.
But Williams trusted to good fortune and enrolled.
Before basketball started, Morehouse football coach Rich Freeman spotted the athletic Williams walking around campus. He asked him to come out and run a few drills.
“Rich called me and said ‘I know you’ve got a basketball player but this guy just ran a 4-something in the 40,’” Brewer said. “I want him to play football.”
As a bonus, Brewer covered Williams’ scholarship for tuition.
Williams became an all-conference player in 2010 and 2011, earning a tryout with the Detroit Lions.
He played just six games of basketball in 2010 because of an ankle injury and then didn’t play at all in 2011 because he wanted to focus on the sport that was paying for classes.
Brewer said his heart broke a little when Williams told him he wanted to concentrate on football, but he understood.
“I knew he could help us,” Brewer said.
Williams proved his worth in basketball this year, his first full season with the team almost three years after trying out for the team.
During a triple-overtime victory over Fort Valley State on Feb. 18, Brewer joked with Williams that he was an old man and ready to go to bed. The game needed to finish.
Williams told his coach he was about to end it and he did, scoring five points in the final period to lead Morehouse to a 108-99 win. He finished with a game-high 29 points.
“He’s just around the basketball every time you need something done out on the court,” Brewer said. “In a small way, he’s kind of like our Lebron James.”
After the game, Williams returned to his dorm room, which he moved into after four weeks of living at Forbes. Because football is over, basketball is paying for his tuition, but not all of his room and board.
Williams said in all of the nights sleeping on the couch or the few nights he has spent sleeping in his car, he never thought about leaving school and driving back to Detroit, or to Warner-Robins where his mom moved a few years ago.
“I got to get that education,” he said as he walks out of the locker room, a smile on his face.
