ST. LOUIS — In St. Louis, we’ve known Isaiah Williams was going to be special for quite a while.
He was the No. 1 recruit in the state of Missouri coming out of Trinity High School as a quarterback. But it wasn’t even football Williams thought would be his future.
“I never thought I’d be in this position. Going into my freshman year I thought I was a hooper. I always wanted to be a hooper. But then when I got my first football offer, I was like, ‘Maybe I could do this,'" Williams said.
Williams committed to play for Lovie Smith at the University of Illinois, where he was thrown a number of curveballs. A coaching changes from Smith to Bret Bielema is one thing. A position change from quarterback to receiver is something else entirely.
“You couldn’t pay me to play receiver," Williams said. "I always told people I’d play DB before I’d play receiver. You couldn’t pay me to play receiver. But it all paid off.”
All Williams did at receiver was tally over 2,300 yards to become the fourth-leading receiver in program history (since 1956).
“I was like, ‘Man. This is it. This is the right move.’ Because it was just so natural. I had always worked on my feet. That was my God-given gift. It’s always been my feet. I always worked on receiver-type stuff even when I was playing quarterback. So when I made that transition it was natural," Williams said of when the move to receiver really clicked.
In the era of the college transfer portal, it would have been easy for Williams to look for greener pastures with all the change in Champaign. But he never wavered. He was loyal for five years and will be remembered as an Illini legend.
“A little adversity only made me stronger. I can always say those tough times that I went through built a fight and character that good times couldn’t have. So I kind of embraced it when I was going through those things. Instead of leaving and going somewhere else. I knew I was going to fight through this and it would make me a better person beyond football," Williams said.
And when it came time to go to the next level, Williams wasn’t exactly a darling from the scouts or the national media, and he didn’t hear his name called in the NFL draft. But that doesn’t matter.
“I kind of like that they feel how they feel… these coaches… the media feels how they feel. Because it’s only going to make the story better. That’s how I look at it. Tough times, people doubting me, It only built a fight and different type of character that good times couldn’t. I kind of embrace it and I love they feel the way they feel, because somebody’s gonna get a steal," Williams said.
After the draft, Williams signed with the Detroit Lions, who already have a large contingent of St. Louis area natives on their roster, including Cardinal Ritter's Jameson Williams, Highland's Sam LaPorta, Ladue's Jack Fox and new draft pick Mekhi Wingo, who attended De Smet.
And while Williams is busy proving people wrong on the field, he wants his true impact to come off of it.
“I want to be that guy who paves the way for the young guys. And not only guys from St. Louis but shorter guys from St. Louis. We’ve got a lot of talented guys who are shorter, but they may be overlooked. So just putting on for everybody and making a way for the city in a positive way. A guy that people can look up to and be, ‘I want to be like that,'" Williams said.
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