Louisville needs Williams to keep the terror on the field

Craig Austin probably didn't realize the double meaning. That's what complicates the description of his West Los Angeles College linebacker.

"He was," the coach said, "a terror."

That we knew about Willie Williams.

Willie Williams? Right about now your synapses are firing. The mental Rolodex is flipping.

Willie Williams?

In terms of college football, his name is ancient history. Forgotten. If guys don't play, they're dead to us. Failed. Busts.

Steve Kragthorpe and Louisville roll the dice on Willie Williams. (AP)

But three years ago Willie Williams was the biggest story in the country, not just college football. His recruiting diary in the Miami Herald was so repugnant that it led to widespread recruiting reforms fast-tracked by the NCAA.

At Florida State, there were four lobster tails, two steaks and a shrimp scampi.

At Florida, the kid allegedly went Guns 'N' Roses at the hotel. One felony and misdemeanor later he was charged with illegally shooting off a fire extinguisher and inappropriately hugging a female student.

Probation followed. That was only the foreword of this crime novel.

Miami (Fla.) still signed Willie despite 11 previous arrests. The school rationalized, as schools do in situations like this. We don't abandon kids like this, president Donna Shalala intimated, we nurture them.

There really was no beginning to Willie's career, only torturous transitions for everyone involved. Williams hurt his knee as a freshman, then redshirted. When he returned in 2005, he didn't work. Big-timed teammates. Washed out. Ten games, 17 tackles.

Yeah, he was a terror.

Willie is back in South Florida these days working out, ready to sign with Louisville next week. That might seem repugnant too, except that Louisville has a history of this sort of thing. Success, even.

Another stud high school linebacker, Nate Harris, once ran his career off the track. Five years ago he was convicted for his role in an armed robbery in Miami. The 'Canes lost interest. After rehabbing his image and game at a Kansas juco, Harris thrived at Louisville.

More than thrived. He led the Cards in tackles and became an NFL prospect.

Williams is trying to do the same thing -- times 11.

After Miami, Willie's stepfather Leonard Pressley scouted the country for a soft landing spot for his stepson. For a while Pearl River (Miss.) College was an option, then the school got nervous and said no. West Virginia and Tennessee stumbled over themselves saying no, no, no, they weren't interested either.

Leonard kept heading west to Culver City, Calif.

"Then when I found out coach was a sheriff," he said, "you're a sheriff and you bring in a guy who has an arrest record. ..."

Made a lot more sense than lobster tails and fire extinguishers. Or maybe it made sense because of them.

Willie's dad died when he was 12, the year before he was a high school freshman. It seems that most of the legal problems came after that.

So maybe the most logical landing strip had to be West L.A. College. Austin is a coach but he is also a cop, an 18-year law enforcement veteran. The 42-year-old senior supervising deputy oversees 35 L.A. County deputy sheriffs, which means at any given moment he can end a phone conversation like he did this week.

"I've got a police problem, can you call me back?" Austin said without waiting for a reply.

"We have inmates," he explained later. "Sometimes there is a disturbance between themselves or deputies. No force can be used without a supervisor's presence."

After the folly of youth, Willie Williams transferred to West L.A., where suddenly he rode an elementary school bus to games. Craig Austin handled inmates. Willie had been one. There weren't many options left. If he and his father traveled any further west they'd be treading water in the Pacific Ocean.

"I wanted to make things crystal clear," Austin said. "He had a zero tolerance policy. I felt an obligation to weed out the negative influences. I was more interested to see how he was going to react going to school, how he was going to react not living in Miami."

Willie played only four games last season because there was an issue with his Miami transcript. Because he left when he did, Willie was on the hook for student fees at Miami of approximately $2,000, according to one source. It was money that the family couldn't readily afford.

But that was the point. At least he played.

"When he had transcript problems and was not allowed to (initially) play, it caused my entire team to go flat," Austin said. "I had to tell them to quit waiting for Superman to come save you. You've got to save yourselves. That's how much of an impact this guy was with the team."

In those four games, Willie made 60 tackles, nine of them sacks. Austin used words like "professional," "personable," "mature."

Willie will be back in the big time in the fall, with two years of eligibility left. In a weird way, that suits everyone.

Louisville is either a halfway house or halfway crazy. Maybe they lucked out with Harris. Maybe they're getting good at this sort of thing. Austin had been a quarterback at Northern Arizona in the mid-'80s when current Louisville AD Tom Jurich had been there serving in the athletic department.

The pair had faith in each other. Is it wise to extend that faith to a crazy, mixed up 19-year-old who is now 22?

"I saw some of his highlights from high school," Austin said. "He was an animal out there."

That, we knew about Willie Williams.