So you basketball people remember Jay Williams, right? He was actually Jason Williams when he played for Duke except that there was already the big man Jayson Williams (who was convicted for the shooting of a limo driver) and White Chocolate Jason Williams. So he had to be “rebranded” as “Jay Williams.”
You people also remember that he was the one that had that unfortunate motorcycle accident. His once-promising NBA career came to an abrupt halt. He had several injuries, including dislocated knee ligaments, a severed leg nerve, and a fractured pelvis.
And it was all told by Williams himself in this book called Life Is Not An Accident.
This memoir by Williams tugs on a lot of emotions. It started immediately from his accident and there were many callbacks to it. As he’s mentioned in the past, he thought of ending his life. Williams talking about his injury and his rehabilitation reminds the reader that we seem to take everything for granted. Getting out of bed seemed like more than a chore to him and, at the same time, he had to get over the mentality of the choices that he made on that day. Williams was an NBA player one day and the next, he was struggling to even walk.
But that’s not the only thing he talked about and he wanted the reader to know that he didn’t want to be defined by that accident alone. He talked about his recruiting process with Duke. Williams also talked about his relationship with Coach Mike Krzyzewski. He talked about him with reverence and it made Coach K seemingly more intimidating. Then Williams talked about his short NBA career with the Chicago Bulls, his frustrations with losing, and the mentality of every player for himself on the team. He also had a few anecdotes about Kobe Bryant and Gary Payton, the latter influenced him a bit and you’ll find that out when you read the book.
Williams also talked about his struggles with his family life before and after the accident. Again, it was a long difficult journey back for Jay but it was also, in many ways, triumphant. Sure, he never found his way back to the NBA as we all know but he made it back enough to get training camp invites. He also mentioned how he became an ESPN analyst. While the accident was jarring and could’ve easily left Williams a broken man forever, it’s very inspirational on how he was able to pick up the pieces and resume life in general. Williams doesn’t want us to feel sorry for him about his accident; he’d rather make us believe that no matter how bad life gets, you can still turn it around. And that’s what Jay Williams did.
Life Is Not An Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention will be released on Tuesday, January 26.
*Special thanks to Amanda Duke of Harper-Collins for the complimentary copy.
Follow Rey-Rey on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass for all tweets about the NBA and terrible pop music. Also, check out his podcast, Rey-Rey Is Fundamental.
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