Jay Williams’ New Identity
He Overcame Disaster with 10,000 Hours, Desirable Disadvantages, and Grit.
By Hunter Bauer | Biokinetics Major at Bethel University (St. Paul, Minnesota)
Jay Williams lay on the ground in pain after zooming away at 60 mph with his new black Yamaha R6 motorcycle on June 19, 2003. Williams’ screaming voice yelled “I THREW IT ALL AWAY! I THREW IT ALL AWAY!” The utility pole that Williams never saw stood no chance when it came into saving Willams’ basketball career. With the motorcycle down the road and with Williams laying on the ground, unable to move, he really knew he threw it all away (ABC News).
Jay Williams found success in a way he never expected. In one second, Williams was on pace to become possibly the greatest point guard for the Chicago Bulls, but instead he became one of the biggest busts in terms of an NBA player. However, that did not stop him from being a successful person. Jay Williams found a way to flip his life into something new. From putting in thousands of hours on the court, to being stuck in the hospital for more than 5 weeks, it was time for a new identity.
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell writes, “Because we cling to the idea that success is a simple function of an individual merit we choose to write as a society doesn’t matter at all” (33). Jay Williams exemplifies Malcolm Gladwell’s ideas of success through his 10,000 hours, desirable disadvantages, and grit.
“Man, your game has gone to another level,” said Chris Collins to Jay Williams. “You’re going to dominate the league next year if you keep playing like that,” Collins added. That morning Jay Williams got up to catch his early morning flight to get back to Chicago. When Williams got back he found himself taking an hour power nap to recharge and then it was time for his morning workout on June 18, 2003, just one day before his life would change forever. Williams wasn’t just your average NBA basketball player. He was the second pick in the 2002 NBA draft, one pick right after future Hall of Famer Yao Ming. The Chicago Bulls saw something in Williams that they liked enough to take him with the second pick (ABC News Network ABC News).
Before Jay was even drafted he played for the Duke Blue Devils for 3 years. Playing under Mike Krzyzewski is no easy task. Coach K expects a lot out of his players, including a commitment to the game and to teammates like no other division 1 NCAA basketball player in the country. Coach K expects and knows that his players can win a championship every year. It just depends on how hard they work. In Williams’ 2000–2001 season with the Blue Devils, he was able to bring another championship to Coach K. He proved to coach that he was a hard worker and that he deserved to win a National Title. Jay Williams not only put in work on the court but he also put in work in the classroom. He took pride with how well he did in the classroom. With putting in 10,000 hours of work in the classroom and on the court, coaches never had to worry about Williams being eligible to play because he was always able to play when it came to grades (Bishop New York Times).
Jay Williams was a hard worker. Malcolm Gladwell talks about being successful with working for 10,000 hours in his book Outliers. Success does not come with being lazy and not putting in any work. Do you think that the Beatles were just always the most iconic band in the world? It turns out that they are not. In Outliers Malcolm discusses how the Beatles first started to get their 10,000 hours of work in. The Beatles had to start up in small pubs and even small bars before they became one of the greatest bands known today. A lot of these early gigs that the Beatles got, they had to play for 8 hours straight at a time. By the time the Beatles burst onto the scene they played an estimated 1,200 times (Franchise Law Journal 346). If we multiply 8 x 1,200 we have a total of 9,600 hours. Look at that, the math just about matches up (Ericsson Psychological Review).
We can now see the potential of Jay Williams. With him putting in all that work it was not even a doubt that he would be a star player in the NBA. But it turns out that he would actually spend 10,000 hours in the hospital instead. Well maybe not exactly 10,000 hours, but he did spend 5 weeks in intensive care on his back, his leg propped up, and on many pain medications. In the ICU unit Williams was in, there was no window, only darkness, and an artificial light. Because of all the pain medication and the room conditions, Williams often had hallucinations. Williams recalls his mother and father hovering over him in the ceiling in one of his hallucinations.
Williams never heard from his teammates in Chicago. He only heard little from the Bulls organization. The Bulls did pay his medical bills and a little of his salary.
Williams was headed down a dark road. He was on pace to become an NBA All-Star, but instead he started to see all the stars in his hospital bed. He went from 10,000 hours of work to 10,000 hours of recovery. This left Williams with the question that he kept asking himself, was all of my 10,000 hours of basketball work for nothing?
“I THREW IT ALL AWAY! I THREW IT ALL AWAY!” At that very moment Jay Williams thought that his 10,000 hours of basketball were for nothing. He knew that he would never have a chance to put on that bright red Chicago Bulls jersey again. He really did throw all that away. That morning of the accident Williams was on his way to have a meeting with his marketing agent. It was a bright sunny June day and Jay thought to himself, “I only have a couple of miles to go, I can ride my bike there.” Sure enough that is what he did. He got the keys to his Yamaha and took off without a helmet. After his meeting with Kevin Bradberry, Bradberry walking out of the front door leaned over and said, “You shouldn’t be riding that thing.” Williams didn’t really listen and rubbed it off. He wanted to show his marketing agent the power that he had in that Yamaha. Williams revs the engine and the third time he did it the motorcycle took off. With the front wheel high in the air all Williams couldn’t see was a big pole waiting to ruin his basketball career. SMACK!
That was how it happened, just like that, it’s all gone. Imagine something you worked on your whole life, just gone. William’s career was basketball, in fact his identity was in basketball. What do you do now? It’s hard to say. Williams had no idea what to do next, what’s the next step. For a lot of NBA players it is basketball or bust. Turns out it was “bust” for him. Jay Williams has officially reached rock bottom.
Time for a comeback! But how? Let’s go to Nebraska basketball. Nebraska has not been the best program when it comes to basketball. They finish last in the Big Ten and they may even be considered an off day when it comes to some of the bigger teams playing them. In the book Nebrasketball, Scott Winter follows Nebraska basketball around for a year. Before beginning his book, Winter asked the Nebraska basketball coach if he could write a book about them for a year and Coach Tim Miles laughed at him and said, “We’re gonna win, but were just not going to win this year”(2). It turns out that Nebraska actually made the NCAA tournament that year and beat some of the higher end schools. Nebraska hit rock bottom in terms of basketball success. And after a few changes like cutting Biggs from the team, having the players run on treadmills, and even following all of Coach Miles superstitions. This team found a way to be a threat that year in the Big Ten.
Turning a team around isn’t easy, just ask the Oakland A’s. In 2002, the Oakland A’s were coming off a playoff appearance but their good players were about to leave because nobody really wanted to stick around and play for a small market team that couldn’t pay them as much as the so called New York Yankees. The A’s had to find almost all new players for their roster the next season. The GM of the A’s was Billy Bean. He had a hard job with being the GM of the A’s because he just lost all of his best players. If Bean wanted to be successful he would have to find great players that can play baseball. Bean’s team was at rock bottom when all the other teams were signing the big name players and the A’s couldn’t even afford to get one of the big names to their roster. So he thought outside the box and brought in players that he thought would get on base. Yep. Get on base. Everyone thought he really hit rock bottom now. He was bringing in players that other teams didn’t even consider bringing in. Bean made a system around those players so that they would be successful. It ended up working for Bean as the A’s made the ALDS the next season with a bunch of players that no one had either heard of. (Moneyball)!
If we go back to Williams’ accident, we really realize just how lucky he was. The doctors told him that they couldn’t believe that he didn’t die from that accident. But now that Williams is at rock bottom, he needs to find a way to come back. How can Williams be successful after he threw it all away? He was forced to change the direction of his career. He didn’t know how to go about it. But he started with getting better day by day. Williams recovered a little more after a little more until he could start to come to terms with what he really did for himself. He knew that he wasn’t done with life. He really struggled with life after the accident, but he knew that Life is not an Accident.
Jay Williams putting pressure on his limble leg, trying to regain the strength that he once had before the accident. Not knowing what lies in front of him in the future, Williams finds himself in a very hard uphill climb to recovery. At this point Williams has been through 10-plus operations, 100 staples, a scar from his pelvis all the way down to his ankle, and small divots from knee replacements. With all of this Williams suffered a total knee dislocation, a dislocated pelvis, a ripped through nerve in his left foot, and a torn hamstring that tore off the bone. During this time of rehab and change, Williams had to teach his legs how to walk again, balance on one leg, to jump, to skip, to jog, and run. He had two physical therapy appointments each day for two whole years. But this is where Jay Williams’ life was in jeopardy. With no basketball and dealing with pain everyday, Williams struggled with depression for the first time in his life. His previous identity was crushed and now he needed to find a new one, but he didn’t want to. He loved basketball like no other and the game meant so much to him. Jay needed a chance, He needed a chance in his new life. It was time to put the old in the past and look toward the future.
In Outliers, we get an example from Malcolm Gladwell of what a second chance looks like. Gladwell describes Marita for us. We come to see how Marita had to change school and attend KIPP Academy in order for her to find success. Her mom raised her all along and KIPP was the last and final place where Marita could get an education. So Marita gave KIPP a shot. At the age of 12 Marita was working harder than any other student in the entire country. She woke up at 5:45am every morning just to get ready for school and then she would get home at school around 5:00pm everyday and work on homework all the way up until 10:00pm. By that time, it was bedtime. Imagine doing that 5 days a week, oh wait they have school on Saturday too, so make that 6 days a week. Marita had to overcome. And that’s what she did, she showed a lot of grit overcoming everything that was placed before her. She wanted to overcome the odds so bad that she chose to attend KIPP Academy and get a quality education. She sacrificed so much free time that all the other kids had that were her age. Gladwell puts it like this, “Marita just needed a chance. And look at the chance she was given”(269). That quote really just sums it up perfectly. Jay Williams needed a chance at success and he was given that, but it may not have been the way that he anticipated.
Williams was given a chance. ESPN gave him that chance. Williams took hold of that chance and he ran with it. It may not have been what Jay would have always wanted to do, but he found a home at ESPN as a sports analyst. Williams is still involved in the sport that he loves, that being basketball. He had to overcome, and he did. He could’ve just given up on his success and call it quits. But he didn’t (Agrest Chicago Times).
To find success, you can never lose sight of it. That is what John Malangone did. Malangone was in prime position to become the Yankees best catcher since Yogi Berra. Unfortunately, Malangone didn’t live up to the hype and eventually became one of the biggest busts in Yankee history. He got involved with off the field issues that led him to having a short lived career in baseball. He also found himself in many motorcycle accidents and he never completely recovered from those. His marriage was not ideal and he ended up getting a divorce as well. John Malangone did not overcome the odds, he hardly showed any grit in the process. Jay Williams could’ve ended up like John Malangone, but ESPN gave him a chance. Jay Williams had the grit to be able to overcome and find a new identity (Smith Damned Yankee).
Jay Williams puts on a suit and tie along with his top of the line earpiece as he is about the head onto the ESPN set. While walking onto the set, Williams thinks about how people- especially Bulls fans-might think about him now that he is starting his new chapter. “I’ve thought back to that moment a lot because people won’t let me forget,” Williams said. “And this might sound crazy, but it was the worst decision I made and the best thing that ever happened to me.” After everything that happened to Williams, the thing that he learned the most is wisdom. And even though this may not have been the original way Williams wanted his basketball career to go, he still was able to get something out of it that was even greater than basketball.
If people were to recall every juncture in their life, and separate the hard times from the fun times, which occasions would define those people the most? The moments that challenge them and make them a better person than they were before, those are the stages that define our heros. Those are the moments that made Jay Williams successful. And those are the points that bloom victory!
WORKS CITED
Agrest, Jeff. “Former Bull Jay Williams Reinvents Himself as ESPN Analyst.” Chicago Sun-Times, 16 Jan. 2020, .
ABC News, ABC News Network. “Jay Williams Recalls Fateful Day” ABC News January 21, 2016
Bishop, Greg. “A Leg Rebuilt, a Life Renewed for Jay Williams.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Feb. 2013.
Ericsson, K. Anders et al. “The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.” Psychological Review 100 (1993): 363–406.
Franchise Law Journal. A Review of the Works of Malcolm Gladwell. Vol 33, Winter 2014.
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Outliers The story of Success.” New York: Back Bay Books, 2008. Print.
Miller, Bennett. Moneyball. Columbia Pictures, 9 Sept., 2011.
Smith, Gary. “Damned Yankee.” Sports Illustrated: Going Deep. New York: Sports Illustrated Books, 2008. Print.
Williams, Jay. Life Is Not an Accident: a Memoir of Reinvention. Harper, 2017.
Winter, Scott. Nebrasketball: Coach Tim Miles and a Big Ten Team on the Rise. Lincoln: University Nebraska Press, 2015. Print.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hunter Bauer, a freshman from Mina, South Dakota, seeks a degree in biokinetics from Bethel University to someday work as a physical therapist in a private practice. Bauer enjoys driving John Deere tractors and hunting with his dog Dingus.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
Sports broadcaster Kelly Hinseth taught me to never pass up an opportunity.
COVID-Class taught me to always be dedicated to the things you have started.
Malcolm Gladwell taught me a hero comes from being an outlier and having to overcome the odds that are stacked against you.
Eric Adler taught me how to drop a character into a moment.
Scott Winter taught me a good paper takes a lot of time and practice
Book Club taught me it is a great idea to pick a book that your professor wrote.
Always find a way to improve, even if you think you’re good enough.
Never give up on a dream; be an outlier.
