2012 Clarke Central High School graduate Marquez Williams stands in Billy Henderson Stadium where he played varsity football. Williams is now the University of Miami fullback, and playing for head football coach Mark Richt, which has always been his dream. “I recall Coach Richt yelling at me for the first time,” Williams said. “You know, most people hang their head a little bit, I smiled because I was playing for Coach Richt. I said,‘Hey, I’m over here getting yelled at by Coach Richt.’” Photo by Sophie Fernandes
By LUCIA BERMUDEZ – Print Editor-in-Chief
By OWEN CHURCHWELL – Staff Writer
University of Miami fullback Marquez Williams, a 2011-12 Clarke Central High School graduate, has traveled a path that has led him to his dreams.
He straps on his gear, stretches his muscles, and braces himself. He runs out through the smoke, thousands of people looking down at him. He hears the crowd and sees the stadium lights gleaming down. He walks to the sidelines with his team. Calmness takes over his body.
“It was almost like a movie, something you always dream of.”
He waits patiently for the call, and then it comes. He is on the backfield, hoping they won’t throw him the ball. Hoping he won’t disappoint his team, his town, his family.
He turns around and looks at the quarterback. He catches the throw, and his 280-pound body dives into the endzone. The roar of the crowd tells him he scored. It tells him he did not disappoint. It tells him he made the first touchdown of the season for the University of Miami.
“I was just feeling like God had that moment picked out for me. I felt that it was supposed to happen the way it did.”
After a lifetime of football, including playing on Friday nights at Clarke Central High School, University of Miami senior Marquez Williams is finally fulfilling his dream: playing college football for former University of Georgia head coach and current University of Miami head coach Mark Richt.
2012 Clarke Central High School graduate Marquez Williams is pictured powerlifting in the Wrestling Gym in Volume 7 Issue 6 of the ODYSSEY Newsmagazine. As a sophomore, Williams set the all-time power cleaning record at CCHS, lifting a 315-pound weight. Williams is currently 6’1, weighs 280 pounds and can bench-press 435 pounds, squat 525 pounds and power-clean 340 pounds. Photo from the ODYSSEY archives
An Athens native, Williams found his passion at the age of nine, when he began playing little league football.
As he progressed through elementary school and middle school, football was a constant. Williams continued to play football in high school at CCHS. However, his dream was not handed to him. The possibilities developed with the growth he made on the football team at CCHS, where he was the starting varsity fullback and weakside tight end for three years, and he received the All-Region honor when he was a senior.
“I tell people all the time that football saved my life,” Williams said. “When I came home (from school), my mom wasn’t home because she was working two jobs. It was just my older sister, me and my brother. So, if I wasn’t playing football, there would have been more of a chance of me being out on the streets and probably doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing.”
Football provided Williams with the structure and support system he needed to succeed on the team and in class.
“Having football, I was actually doing something and was occupied after school,” Williams said. “I had to be accountable for my grades because I wouldn’t be able to play football if I didn’t have decent grades. It kept some discipline in me.”
This accountability was essential for Williams, who sometimes struggled with discipline issues. Math department teacher and varsity running back coach Aaron Cavin coached Williams from 2009-2012 and developed a relationship with him as a player.
(From left to right) 2009 varsity running back coach Aaron Cavin stands with the varsity running backs Zuri Jewell, Davente Appleby, Marquez Williams, Quenshaun Watson and Tony Glenn. Cavin feels he always knew Williams would continue to play football after high school and tried to mentor Williams during his high school career. “When Quez was in 10th or 11th grade, I told him that he could go pro,” Cavin said. “I wasn’t lying. I really believed in him. I also told him that it was up to him to make that happen.” Photo courtesy of Aaron Cavin
“I remember staying late many practices because he had to run extra for discipline reasons,” Cavin said. “I saw a kid who thrived when he had someone that would walk with him through his high school football experience. It took me a year and a half to figure that out, but once I got more on a horizontal relationship with him, we got real close.”
Williams was also coached by current Cedar Shoals High School head coach Leroy Ryals, who recognized Williams’ gifts.
“He has always had amazing raw strength and power,” Ryals said.
As Williams continued to play football his senior year, college was on the horizon, but it seemed to him that his dream may not come true.
“My senior year of high school when it was getting closer to graduation, I didn’t have any offers to go play anywhere,” Williams said. “At that particular time, I figured that I wasn’t going to get to play college football or that my dream of playing Division One was gone.”
However, with the help and support of his family and coaches, specifically former CCHS wide receiver coach Damien Gary, Williams committed to Mars Hill University, a Division II school, for football.
“I took that opportunity and just tried to make the most of it,” Williams said. “I just kind of sat down and told myself, ‘If I am going to be here to play football, if I got another chance to play for another three or four years, that I just needed to take full advantage of it.’”
Williams attended Mars Hill for four years and was a three-year starter with a two-time All-Region South Atlantic Conference honoree. At Mars Hill, Williams was not only able to mature as an athlete, but also as a person.
“Mars Hill was where I did a lot of my growing. Especially leaving high school, my first time being away from home, I was able to learn a lot as far as responsibility and how to take care of myself,” Williams said. “I learned to overcome a lot of things, I learned to have a better attitude, what it means to really work towards some things and how things that I do now will later affect me in life.”
After four successful years at Mars Hill, Williams was ready for a change. He spent his senior year interning and preparing to graduate, but he knew he had one more year of eligibility left to play college football, and did everything in his power to seize the opportunity.
“I sent out a hundred different emails to a hundred different schools, but Jon Richt, Mark Richt’s son, played at Mars Hill and I found out he was quarterback coach at Miami,” Williams said. “A fullback had transferred from Miami to a different school. With Coach Richt, I just knew that they would need a fullback. I sent them my highlight tapes and Coach Richt called me the week I was graduating from Mars Hill. He called me down there that Sunday.”
His dream was about to come true.
In 2016, Williams transferred to the University of Miami to play for Richt, a man he grew up admiring.
“I grew a Georgia fan. I always loved Georgia. I thought that I would play for coach Richt. I just thought that it would be in red and black and not orange and green,” Williams said. “I don’t take it for granted that I play for him now. I love him. He is a great guy.”
Clarke Central High School graduate Marquez Williams and his mother Jackie Williams pose for a photo in the CCHS Media Center. Jackie has supported Marquez in his football pursuits from a young age and is proud of the accomplishments her son has made. “It is a great feeling. I love to see him play. What mother or parent doesn’t want to see their child play, to go to college and to just live their dream of what they want to do?” Jackie said. “He embraces it, he loves what he does and he just goes out there and does his best at it.” Photo from the ODYSSEY archives
Williams’ mother, Jackie, introduced her son to University of Georgia football and watched his admiration for coach Richt develop.
“He embraced that whole experience of going to a game and that is where it all started, where he started loving Georgia,” Jackie said. “He got a room at home and it is just Georgia everything, and now he is at Miami and he is like, ‘Mom, we got to switch it over now, it has to be Miami now.’ He is living out his dream on what he wants to do. It just took him to another state.”
And in that other state, Williams played for Richt as a University of Miami fullback. He had a successful season at Miami, making the first touchdown of the season and seeing action in all 13 games with five starts. Williams also made his first career start and caught a 15-yard pass against Florida Atlantic University. Williams enjoyed his season and the experiences that came with it.
2012 Clarke Central High School graduate Marquez Williams tosses up a football in the Clarke Central High School Old Gym. Williams feels that now, as a fifth-year senior at the University of Miami, he has grown greatly since his high school days. “I would have to say, without a doubt, that my college career now, I have grown to be a lot wiser and to make a lot better decision than I did back in high school,” Williams said. “You just learn more about the game, learn more about life. Your high school years will carry you and will be what makes you become more successful later on in life.” Photo by Julie Alpaugh
“(I loved) my teammates and coaches, but another is just the opportunity, being able to have the opportunity, and just taking advantage of it, Williams said. “(I was) just grateful for everything in the day no matter what it was whether it was a piece of clothing, being able to be on the field, just whatever.”
Currently, Williams is training towards his pro day on March 30 in hopes of getting drafted for the National Football League (NFL). Williams feels getting drafted for the NFL would be the “cherry on top” of his football career and gain him more exposure in the industry. However, he ultimately wants to finish his master’s and continue to give back to his family and his community by reopening the community center in Stonehedge, his old neighborhood.
“I was a camper there, and I also worked as a camp counselor there,” Williams said. “During the summer, when parents worked, those kids had a place to go. They had a place to keep up with their schooling, summer reading and doing math and whatnot, and it also provided lunch for some of the kids throughout the day.”
Williams benefitted a lot from the center and his community, and hopes to give back in any way he can.
“My ultimate goal is to help others prosper, and (to do) outreach, whether it’s in my community, kids, people around me…just trying to help make other people’s lives better.”
It is clear from Williams’ determination, passion and drive that he will never stop dreaming and accomplishing his goals. His dreams are far from over, but as he continues to walk on his path, Williams can say without a doubt that he did what most do not: he lived his dream.
“My biggest thing was being able to play at a big-time school and being able to go walk out into a stadium full of thousands,” Williams said. “When they say the starting line up on the jumbo screen at a big game, having my face up there with my name, my number and where I’m from, to me that’s the dream.”
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