The Pride of Piketon
2/5/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Feb. 5, 2002
For those who live in Oxford, Ohio, it is hard to imagine any place smaller. But nestled just off State Route 23 is a small community called Piketon, which boasts just a couple of gas stations and no stoplights. The only sign of Corporate America is a Taco Bell located inside one of the gas stations.
So when Doug Williams, now a junior guard on the basketball team, decided to come to Miami, you might say it was like making a step to big city life.
As the clich? goes, Williams went from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond. At Piketon High School, Williams was a first-team Division III all-state selection and earned league player of the year accolades. He also earned county and region player of the year recognition while garnering all-league honors each of his four seasons. As a senior, Williams averaged over 20 points per game and nine rebounds per contest. In one game the prep standout drained 10 3-point shots and scored 50 points against Adena on his home court. That same night Williams also surpassed the 1,000-point plateau.
"I needed 36 to reach 1,000, and we were going on the road for our next few games," Williams said. "I really wanted to get 1,000 at home if I could."
A four-year high school starter, Williams jumped to Miami and has had to assume more of a reserve role in his first three seasons. Going from being an outstanding high school basketball player to more of a role player has not always been easy.
"The transition from high school to college is always a big jump," Williams said. "In high school all the best players are required to score, but in college you need to find your role and fill it."
No one understands the transition from a smaller school to the Division I level more than Williams' current coach, Charlie Coles.
"A lot of people don't know this, but I left Miami after one semester, went to a junior college for a year and then came back to Miami and loved it because I had adjusted," Coles said. "When I came here, this place (Miami) was too big for me. My graduating class was 29 people, so I wasn't used to having so many people around.
"I think Doug is in a similar situation to mine. I had to jump back and refocus. That's what I've been trying to tell Doug, and I think that's why I haven't always been able to help him quite as much because I see a lot of myself in him, more so than any other athlete here."
While the tendency for someone who had such an illustrious high school career might be to expect or even demand to receive more playing time, Williams never loses focus of the desire for team success and is lauded as the consummate team player, even during his prep career.
"Doug was a phenomenal scorer who made the players around him better by keeping them in the game," Williams' former prep coach Phil Howard said. "He was a very unselfish kid, almost too unselfish, who was very willing to pass the ball."
"Doug's been great for the guys in our program," Coles said. "There's not one person in our program who can point to Doug and say, 'He's not for the team'.
"He's a team player all the way," Coles added. "I don't know if he would do it over again (come to Miami), but I certainly would want him to come here again. I don't know if he knows this, but I think the world of him, and I mean that with all my heart. I think he's a bashful person, which effects his aggressiveness sometimes, but with that being said, he's going to be a real success in his life because he doesn't try to take any shortcuts. Never once have I seen him with a bad attitude-that's just not Doug. Hopefully one of these days the good guy will win, and Doug is definitely a good guy."
The people of Piketon also revere Williams as an outstanding individual. On Feb. 1, Williams' high school honored him with the equivalent of retiring his jersey at halftime of a varsity game. Due to the limited amount of numbers in basketball, Piketon was unable to retire Williams' jersey number 33, but the school did honor him as it does when retiring a football number, and placed a picture of him in the school.
"He is very deserving of this honor," Coles said. "He had a great career at Piketon. His family is well-known in that area, and Doug is a guy who the young kids in that community would do very well in looking up to, because he's just that type of a person."
After college, Williams hopes to go back to high school, so to speak. His dreams lie in helping ambitious high school players reach their full potential.
"I didn't really know I wanted to coach until I came to college," Williams said. "Now that my playing career is starting to come to an end, I don't want to leave the game, and this is a way I can stay in it.
"People have suggested that someday I should shoot for coaching on the collegiate level," says Williams. "But that's not where I belong. My place is to help young athletes get to that next level."
He is not alone in his belief.
"I think Doug would be a natural and tremendous asset to coaching on the high school level," Howard said. "He has the patience and the mindset to coach a team."
Coles agrees.
"He'll be the best coach ever because he will be able to communicate," he said. "I think coaching is in his blood, and I think he'll know how to talk to kids. He will especially know how to bring talent out of kids who are like him and kind of quiet."
Whatever happens, you can be sure of one thing: Doug Williams will continue to make the residents of Piketon proud of their local hero.
Story by Associate Media Relations Director Angie Renninger
