Man for all seasons

Carroll Williams isn't Southeast Missouri State's official sports historian -- but he might as well be.

Williams acknowledges with a laugh that he has just about seen it all during his half-century of being involved with Southeast athletics. That involvement will end with next week's Ohio Valley Conference golf tournament in Decatur, Ala., although it would continue a bit longer if the Redhawks capture the title and advance to the NCAA tournament.

"I guess I've seen a little bit of everything, and done a little bit of everything since I've been here," Williams said, smiling. "But it's been great and I wouldn't change a thing."

Williams, 67, began his run at Southeast when he entered the university as a freshman in 1955 and was a walk-on football player under legendary coach Kenny Knox.

Between then and now, he's served in a variety of capacities in addition to his current duties as golf coach. Those include head basketball coach, assistant basketball coach, assistant baseball coach, instructor, professor and interim director of athletics.

"Carroll has done everything here. I think he's coached everything. He's done everything but sweep up the floors, and he might have done that," Southeast athletic director Don Kaverman said. "But he's been an invaluable person at the university, and he's been an outstanding mentor to me.

"I came here in February of 1999 and inherited the job he did. What a tremendous resource for somebody coming in new, to have that amount of institutional memory. It was invaluable to me. And in the six years I've been here, he has been a real team player."

The beginnings

Williams was born in Dexter, spent some of his childhood in Puxico -- where he said he was turned on to basketball -- and graduated from Ritenour High School in St. Louis after the family relocated there for his father's work.

Williams, with his eyes on becoming a coach, entered Southeast in 1955 intent on majoring in physical education.

"A guy told me if you're going to coach, you need to play as many sports as you can," Williams said.

So, despite never having played high school football, he approached Knox about joining the team as a walk-on.

"Coach Knox asked me what high school I played at, but he never said football," Williams recalled with a grin. "I said Ritenour, where I had played basketball and baseball, but not football."

Williams played football for just that one season, but ended up being a member of a Southeast squad that went 9-0 and is enshrined in the university's athletic hall of fame.

"I didn't play much. I wasn't much of a player," Williams said. "But it was a great team to be on."

Williams then got involved with the basketball program under coach Ralph Pink, spending some time as a player and as a student coach.

Charles Parsley took over the basketball program from Pink in 1958, which was Williams' senior year. Parsley asked Williams to coach Southeast's freshman team, which Williams described as "a good experience for me."

After graduating in 1959, Williams spent one season as a graduate assistant basketball coach at the University of Missouri -- where he earned a master's in education -- then returned to Southeast in the fall of 1960 as the supervisor of physical education and basketball coach at College High School, which was Southeast's lab school.

During a 10-year tenure at College High, Williams also served the university in other coaching roles, including two years as a baseball assistant under legendary coach Joe Uhls. Williams also took over the golf team from Knox when he became ill in 1968 and coached that sport until it was dropped in 1976.

Southeast basketball

In 1970, Williams was named by then-athletic director John Schneider -- who was an all All-American football player on that 1955 team -- as an assistant basketball coach to Bob Cradic. He also had duties as an assistant professor in the department of physical education.

"John had done some officiating, and I guess he'd seen my teams at the lab school play and thought I did a pretty good job," Williams said. "He made me assistant coach, but it was a one-year deal. He wanted to see if we'd get along."

The two apparently got along good enough because Williams remained Cradic's assistant until Cradic left and Williams was named his successor in 1975.

Williams was Southeast's head basketball coach through 1981. Although he compiled just a 57-75 record, his 1978-79 team went 19-9 and finished third in the NCAA Division II regional tournament.

After leaving the basketball program, Williams became an assistant professor in the college of education and continued as an assistant physical education professor.

Williams again became Southeast's golf coach in 1990 when the university reinstated the program, and he retired from teaching in 1996, although he continued to coach golf on a part-time basis.

But Williams' full-time duties at Southeast were far from finished when he stepped down from teaching. In 1997, he was appointed as interim athletic director until a replacement could be found for Rich McDuffie, who left for Eastern Illinois.

"'[Southeast president] Dr. [Ken] Dobbins called and wanted to know if I would be AD for four months. It stretched into two years," Williams said. "I've told people I've probably had more offices than anybody on campus. I've always done everything the university wanted me to do, which is why you stay around a place so long."

A blessed feeling

Williams acknowledged that he never expected to stay in one place for so long -- but he's glad things worked out the way they did.

"I had no idea I would stay this long. It's rare in education, because about the only way you advance is to move to another job," he said. "But I have a great love for the university. A lot of people have had a huge impact on my life, giving me an opportunity. I've been blessed."

Williams said the relationships he has forged with his student-athletes and others over the years has been the most rewarding aspect of his long tenure at Southeast.

"That's the most important thing," he said. "If it weren't for the relationships you establish, coaching wouldn't be anything. It's all about the kids. When you see a kid who comes to school as a mediocre student or person, and he turns out to be a very good student or person, that makes it all worthwhile. It's never been about winning or losing to me. Helping out a kid, that's what it's all about.

"I have yet to have a day where I didn't look forward to getting up and going to work. I'm so fortunate to have made a living out of something I love."

The fit Williams, who plays golf as often as he can, looks considerably younger than his age. For that, he credits being around college students as well as the many roles he has filled at Southeast.

"Part of it is being around kids all the time," he said. "And part of it is I've changed jobs seven or eight times on this campus. It gives you a fresh outlook, it rejuvenates you."

Not really retiring

Although Southeast is dropping golf after this year because of budget cuts -- something Williams is not at all happy about, saying "I think it's a mistake. It's a shame" -- Williams was planning to step down following the season anyway.

But don't look for him to simply fade away into normal retirement. He became interested in the insurance business a few years ago and plans to be involved with that.

"I keep telling people you're not going to see me in a rocking chair. I'm just not the type to sit around the house," he said. "I'm going to sell insurance. I enjoy the heck out of it, because look at what coaches do. You help people get from here to here. I can do that with insurance. It's fun, and you'll meet a lot of people.

"It's not like I have to make a living. I'm just going to enjoy it. And I'm also going to play a lot more golf, especially with my wife, Debbie. I really enjoy playing with her. She's just a fun person to be around."

While Williams is getting out of coaching -- Southeast has had a strong golf season, beating about 80 percent of its opponents and finishing no worse than sixth in any tournament entering the OVC Championships -- his two children will still be around to carry on the family coaching tradition.

Williams' two sons, Steve and Kevin, were accomplished athletes. Steve was a baseball and football star at Southeast who advanced to the Class AAA level in minor league baseball, and Kevin played Division I basketball at St. Louis University.

Both made coaching a career. Steve is the head baseball coach at Cape Girardeau Central High School -- which both sons attended -- and has led the Tigers to a state title. Kevin was a Southeast assistant basketball coach who is now an assistant at Hancock High School in St. Louis.

"I couldn't be prouder of those two kids," Williams said. "They've just done really well."

So has their father.