More than half a century after Jim Williams coached his first basketball game at Colorado State and 27 years after his final appearance on the bench, his legacy was on display in March at the Class 5A boys state championship.
Unbeknownst to most of the fans, former CSU teammates under Williams – Aurora Central’s Bob Caton and Denver East’s Rudy Carey – made a pregame pact.
“We said, ‘This one’s for Coach Williams and (former Williams assistant) Coach (Boyd) Grant,”‘ Caton said. “The way we both coached the game, that’s coach Williams’ influence.”
A consummate member of The Greatest Generation, Williams conquered polio as a child and leukemia as an octogenarian. In between he contracted malaria during his World War II service in the Pacific.
In his final battle, the beloved CSU icon clung to life for days in a Fort Collins hospice after life-support measures were removed. Williams died early Thursday morning; he was 92.
“He was as good a father as he was a coach,” said his daughter, Joan Williams, who cared for him with her sister, Carol Williams, for the past few years.
Williams’ legacy can’t be reduced to mere numbers. Yes, he enjoyed 352 career victories, four NCAA appearances (including the 1969 quarterfinals) and was a charter member in CSU’s Sports Hall of Fame.
His enduring imprint, however, was the number of young men who followed his path into coaching or education.
“He took kids who maybe weren’t at the top of the (economic) ladder when he recruited them and brought them up a couple of notches,” Caton said. “Then those families came up a couple of notches.”
When Bill Strannigan left for Iowa State after taking CSU to the 1954 NCAAs, CSU football coach and athletic director Bob Davis called on Williams, coach of the national junior college tournament champions at Snow College.
Williams, who doubled as CSU athletic director from 1965-68, set the foundation for membership in the Western Athletic Conference.
Along the way, former players- turned- assistant coaches Grant and Jim Brandenburg took CSU and Wyoming, respectively, to the NCAA Tournament. Grad assistants Dick Motta and Mike Montgomery landed in the NBA.
“Coach really understood the game. He’s the best I’ve ever seen working to the strengths of each player,” said former player Hal Kinard, who often sat next to Williams courtside in recent years.
Floyd Kerr, another former Williams protégé and now athletic director at Morgan State, said: “He helped us become better college students. He had leadership qualities and he instilled that in his players about being leaders and having integrity to do the right thing.”
Williams also did everything he could to help young assistants on rival staffs. Former Air Force coach Reggie Minton recalled that as a new assistant in 1969, Williams took him under his wing at the Final Four convention.
“He was a giant in our profession,” Minton said. “I’d be sent on an errand to take a tape up there and he’d spend three or four hours just talking and showing me around.”
Williams’ favorite contemporaries were national champions and Hall of Famers John Wooden of UCLA and Don Haskins of Texas-El Paso.
CSU gave UTEP (then Texas Western) one of its biggest scares during the Miners’ 1966 national championship season.
The two were partners in crime against WAC officials. Former basketball referee and current radio talk-show host Irv Brown recalled Williams and Haskins making a pregame wager in the 1970s on who could get tossed first.
“I told them, ‘If I’m staying, you’re staying,”‘ Brown said. “My best memories of Haskins and Williams are the same. It was tough to referee a game but they did a lot for basketball. They understood it was theater.”
One time, Williams charged into the officials’ locker room to dispute a call after a loss at Utah State. Bobby Dibler, now Mountain West supervisor of officials, recalled William returning after reviewing the game tape to admit the officials were correct.
After retiring, Williams visited Moby Arena on a regular basis, especially when Grant took the Rams to two NITs and two NCAAs. Williams had a courtside seat with a placard bearing his name amid the sponsorship signage. He became a frequent visitor to practice with a string of successors.
“J.J. was awesome,” said Dale Layer, now an assistant at Liberty. “It was always a special time when he came by practice and games. He’d grab your arm … We’d call it the J.J. Grip. … He held you captive for 20-30 minutes. It was an honor just to know him.”
Williams’ wife, Mary, and a son, Bobby, preceded him in death. Williams will be buried Monday next to his wife in Logan, Utah, and a memorial service at CSU is being planned for mid-June.
Members of the Williams family announced a scholarship fund in the coach’s name. Donations may be made to the “J.J.” Williams Memorial Scholarship Endowment through the CSU Foundation at P.O. Box 1870, Fort Collins 80522.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-954-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
A legendary life on the court
Born: March 19, 1915, in Malad City, Idaho
Education: Bachelor’s (1947) and master’s degrees (1954) from Utah State
Military Service: A company commander in the Army from 1940-45.
Coaching: Snow College in Ephraim, Utah; Colorado State University, 1955-1980
Notable:
Family: Wife, Mary (deceased); children Bobby (deceased), Carol (lives in Denver), Joan (lives in Fort Collins)
Year-by-year record at CSU:
Year … W-L
1954-55 … 11-12
1955-56 … 12-13
1956-57 … 9-16
1957-58 … 14-11
1958-59 … 8-14
1959-60 … 13-10
1960-61 … 17-9
1961-62 … 18-9
1962-63 … 18-5
1963-64 … 16-9
1964-65 … 16-8
1965-66 … 14-8
1966-67 … 13-10
1967-68 … 11-13
1968-69 … 17-7
1969-70 … 14-9
1970-71 … 15-10
1971-72 … 15-9
1972-73 … 13-15
1973-74 … 12-14
1974-75 … 14-12
1975-76 … 10-16
1976-77 … 13-12
1977-78 … 18-9
1978-79 … 11-16
1979-80 … 10-17
