It was 7 a.m., and Fremont High\u2019s Andrew Williams was sleeping at his grandmother\u2019s house in South Los Angeles when she woke him up to tell him a USC football coach wanted to speak to him on her cellphone before he went to school.<\/p>\n
Williams will never forget that moment on Feb. 12. Defensive line coach Eric Henderson was calling to officially offer him a scholarship to play for the Trojans.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t believe it until you see it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen he told me in his tone and how serious he was, I knew it was real. It was destiny calling. It took me a couple hours to reflect what was going on. I was stunned.\u201d<\/p>\n
By lunch time in the school quad, while surrounded by friends and classmates, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Williams was calling Henderson to tell him, \u201cI\u2019m ready to become a Trojan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henderson replied, \u201cHold on. I have someone who wants to speak to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Lincoln Riley joined the called.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018We\u2019re so excited to have you here.\u2019 It was genuine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fremont High senior Andrew Williams has shown his versatility as a defensive end, tight end and fullback.<\/p>\n
(Eric Sondheimer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Williams was so unknown in the recruiting world before committing to USC last February that he said, \u201cI wasn\u2019t mentioned by any recruiting sites. I had no stars. Honestly it didn\u2019t make me feel any different. I was the same player before the stars and without the stars. Most people still don\u2019t know about me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said a three-touchdown, 10-tackle performance as a junior against L.A. Jordan last fall while playing fullback, defensive end and receiver caught the attention of Colorado State assistant Chad Savage, who later joined USC as an assistant.<\/p>\n
Recruiting players from inner city Los Angeles used to be a priority for USC and UCLA. Fremont grad Ricky Bell<\/a>, a star running back for USC, has his name on the Pathfinders\u2019 stadium. Fremont grad Mark Bradford<\/a> was a star receiver at Stanford. Crenshaw has sent numerous players to USC and UCLA. Dorsey\u2019s head coach, Stafon Johnson, was a standout running back for the Trojans.<\/p>\n But a drop in talent in the City Section has made identifying potential success stories more difficult. Williams, who has a 3.8 grade point average and plans to graduate in December, said he hopes to be part of the start of a rebirth in championing players from the inner city.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m comfortable with people looking up to me,\u201d he said. \u201cSomebody in the city is actually doing it. Just as I can do it, so can you.\u201d<\/p>\n He doesn\u2019t doubt the road ahead remains difficult.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel I was one of the least privileged kids,\u201d he said. \u201cTo have the opportunity I\u2019m doing now. \u2026 If I was another 6-5 kid that wasn\u2019t from South Central, I would have been known. They would have shot me up the rankings. They don\u2019t show that in the city I love. That\u2019s cool. That\u2019s for them to keep sleeping on us.\u201d<\/p>\n Living 10 blocks from Fremont with his grandmother since he was 7, Williams said he didn\u2019t discover football until his freshman year. He said he had too much free time until reaching high school and finding something to focus on.<\/p>\n \u201cHave you heard the saying, \u2018People get stuck and lost in the system?\u2019 People become a product of their environment,\u201d he said. \u201cI needed time to figure my way out. I came to a realization when I came to high school that something was going to have to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n With his height, athleticism \u2014 he can dunk \u2014 and agility \u2014 he also ran track \u2014 USC will watch him this fall to see whether his position will be tight end or defensive end. He\u2019s a raw, intriguing prospect with lots of room to become stronger.<\/p>\n First-year Fremont coach Derek Benton was the coach at Jordan last season when Williams had his big game.<\/p>\n \u201cHe made his mark against me, then I knew and heard about him and it was one of the attractions coming here,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m very impressed with Andrew as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n All Williams wanted was an opportunity to get a degree in college. He wants to study communications and learn about sports broadcasting. He said he didn\u2019t need to visit multiple colleges or seek attention from social media. The USC offer was enough.<\/p>\n \u201cFootball teaches you can\u2019t expect results without work,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople expect things in life, but they don\u2019t put the work in. That\u2019s a lesson football teaches you. It teaches unity, leadership, how to treat others.\u201d<\/p>\n He has been rewarded for making good decisions and surrounding himself with people who want to see him succeed. All he\u2019s ever wanted was a chance to prove himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m doing my thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was 7 a.m., and Fremont High\u2019s Andrew Williams was sleeping at his grandmother\u2019s house in South Los…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[5426,11286,1582,276,2451,30381,34224,34225,2961,224,2444,5337,7605,9323,9884,11645,581,2501,11016,2612],"class_list":{"0":"post-43918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-andrew-williams","9":"tag-attention","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-city","13":"tag-defensive-end","14":"tag-football-talent","15":"tag-head-coach","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-times","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-most-people","21":"tag-player","22":"tag-receiver","23":"tag-school","24":"tag-star","25":"tag-ucla","26":"tag-usc","27":"tag-williams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114807527538535962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}