Natalie Williams is still running the show
By Lee Benson | Deseret News |
Published: Aug. 1, 2017 5:55 p.m.
Updated: Aug. 2, 2017 10:15 a.m.
DRAPER â Itâs been 12 years now since she last laced up her basketball shoes and, yes, Natalie Williams has pretty much stayed true to her retirement day vow.
âI donât plan on running again, unless something big and scary is chasing me,â she said in 2005 after sheâd shot her last basket and pulled down her final rebound for the Indiana Fever, the WNBA team sheâd joined after the Utah Starzz folded in 2002.
She was 34 years old â not exactly ancient, even by pro athlete standards. But itâs not the years, itâs the miles. And few athletes, male or female, had gone the distance quite like she had.
At Taylorsville High School, she led her teams to state championships in volleyball and basketball. At UCLA, she became the first woman in history to be named All-American in both volleyball and basketball the same season. After college she won gold medals playing basketball in two world championships and the 2000 Olympics. In nine seasons as a professional she was an All-Star seven times and was once league MVP.
And now? Whatâs the woman the state of Utah named Female Athlete of the Century and who is enshrined in the Womenâs Basketball Hall of Fame doing now?
Watching everybody else lace up their sneakers and run.
After more than a decade of coaching club and high school basketball â helping Skyline High School to two state championships as an assistant and compiling a 55-11 record and two region championships as head coach for three seasons at Juan Diego High School â Williams has ramped up her game, establishing the Natalie Williams Basketball Academy at Sport City, the 80,000-square-foot mega-gym in Draper.
She has 14 youth teams and five elite high school club teams under her direction, in addition to scheduling camps and organizing tournaments. Itâs a full-time job and then some, which is fine with Williams, who never had a problem staying overtime in the gym.
She looks at the beautiful, air-conditioned courts and dozens of girls shooting baskets at Sport City, and even if it wasnât all that long ago, canât help but compare todayâs world for female athletes to the one she grew up in not that many miles â and years â down the road in Taylorsville.
âMy first sport was softball at 8 years old; I didnât start playing basketball until seventh grade,â she said.
She didnât even know such a thing as summer camps existed until she was well into her teens.
When she got serious about volleyball during her high school years, she used to take the Amtrak redeye to Las Vegas on Fridays to join a club team there that would travel to Los Angeles for the weekend in order to play against elite level competition. On Sunday night sheâd ride the train back from Vegas to Salt Lake City.
âMy mom let me do that!â Williams exclaims.
Musing on all that, she gestures toward Ayla and Nation, her two youngest daughters. Theyâre 10 and 7. Theyâve been playing basketball since they could walk.
Her hopes for her girls? The same as for everyone else at the Natalie Williams Basketball Academy: teach them how to win and how to lose, how to build confidence, how to be part of a team, how to have fun. And, oh yeah, how to play basketball the right way. If all goes really well, theyâll wind up with a scholarship that pays for their college education.
Williams has been there and done that. UCLA paid her way through college, getting a bargain in the process. Not only did their Utah recruit star on the basketball team, she led the Bruins to those two national championships in volleyball. On one memorable night, Natalie suited up for the basketball team early in the evening and later that night led the volleyball team to a win over USC.
Twenty-five years later, she says her only regret about college â and weâre not making this up â is not playing more.
âUCLA wanted me to play softball one year and I said no because I needed a break,â she said. âI wish I would have played.â
Her love for sports, and where sports takes you, is effervescent.
âYou learn how to handle conflict, you learn how to handle pressure. Those are life skills sports teaches you,â she said. âYou learn how to be gracious even in defeat, you learn how to communicate â with your coaches, with your peers â you learn about confidence and how to believe in yourself.â
She saw the world because of sports.
âIâve been to Cuba, Argentina, Taiwan, Australia, Russia, China, Japan, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, Siberia,â she said, ticking off the country names off the top of her head.
Playing in the WNBA â where her 8.3 rebounds-per-game career average still ranks eighth best all time â gave her a graduate course in Americana. âItâs remarkable where sports took me, the things I saw, the things I learned.â
The only drawback is that 38-inch vertical leap she used to have is more like .38 now.
âThe worst thing is getting old and you can put that down,â she said, smiling, sort of.
âWhen you jump so high for so long youâve eventually gotta come down. Who knows how many times I landed, but I have zero cartilage in both ankles and both knees. Iâve had two surgeries on my right ankle and itâs still not good at all. I do have dreams of running once in a while. I miss it. But the best I can do is quick walk. The girls know it. They know mom canât chase them fast up the stairs.â
Still, she said she wouldnât change a minute, or a second, and thatâs the big draw for her to keep coming to the gym every day, even if she canât run the floor like she once did.
Showing the way for others never gets tiring.
âI just enjoy teaching and coaching young kids and I really want to make a name for the Utah kids,â she said. âUtah as a whole is not known for having good quality recruits and Iâm trying to change that.â
Nate Williams, the dad she didnât meet until she was a teenager, is a regular presence in her life now. Her mother, Robyn, and Nate met at Utah State but did not marry. Shortly after Natalie was born in 1970, Nate finished his final season playing at USU and then embarked on his own pro basketball career. He spent eight years in the NBA, while Robyn moved to Taylorsville to raise Natalie alone.
It wasnât until she was 16 that Natalie met her father in person. Their relationship has developed since then. Nate Williams was in Utah recently for a golf fundraiser for his daughterâs academy. He was there front and center last summer in Knoxville, Tennessee, when his daughter was inducted into the Womenâs Basketball Hall of Fame. So was Robyn, who lives in South Jordan with her husband, just around the corner from Natalie and the grandkids, and is a constant presence taking care of Ayla and Nation and the two older children, Sydney and Turasi.
âYou know, it takes a village; that saying is true,â said Williams.
The same is true of her academy (nataliewilliamsbasketballacademy.com), where she has surrounded herself with a staff of coaches who will help her emphasize all the positives and sheer joys of the great game of basketball â while also joining her in enforcing her one hard and fast rule: No one is allowed to say âcanât.â
If youâre heard saying that four-letter word around Williams, thatâs five pushups, for the entire gym.
âYou can say you are not able, but not the âcâ word,â she said. âBecause if you say it, youâre right.â
She sees such a bright future for the youngsters sheâs coaching. The places they can go, the things they can do. If you make it to the big leagues these days, she marvels, âYour family can watch you play on their phone! That would have been fun for my family to do that!â
Beyond teaching basketball skills, she wants the girls who play for her to learn to enjoy the journey.
âAppreciate every opportunity youâre given; make sure youâre not just going through the motions,â she tells them. âThere are amazing opportunities coming and you donât want to miss any of them.â
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