Jay Williams has become one of ESPN's strongest, most dignified voices during an unprecedented moment for sports: 'My whole life has led me to this moment'
- ESPN analyst Jay Williams is hosting a new daily radio and TV show, "Keyshawn, JWill & Zubin," alongside Keyshawn Johnson and Zubin Mehenti each morning.
- Williams brings a thoughtful voice to the world of sports, which has become a more blatant microcosm of the challenges facing society than ever before.
- Williams told Insider that his past has prepared him to "dig deeper and try to find a space where we can create connectivity and bring people together."
Jay Williams has never been interested in sticking to sports.
"When I hear that line, it frustrates me, because you've had a lot of massive sports figures throughout the course of time who have stood for things bigger than sports," Williams told me. Take Muhammad Ali, he said, or LeBron James, or Bubba Wallace.
An early-2000s college basketball sensation for the Duke Blue Devils, Williams was once considered the heir apparent to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls throne. But after a gruesome accident ended his nascent basketball career, he spent years picking up the pieces. Now, he's a rising star in a different arena — sports media — and gaining attention as one of the strongest, most dignified voices at ESPN.
As a broadcaster, Williams is looking in on a sports world disrupted to an extent modern fans have never seen, and one in which racial issues are simultaneously front and center in overdue and unprecedented ways. In that sense, sports have become a far more blatant microcosm of the challenges facing society than ever before.
But that's how the 38 year old has always seen it.
"Sports are a platform that people utilize in order to talk about real-world issues that are applicable to them," Williams told me in early March — before the full effects of the pandemic and America's recent reckoning with race had taken hold.
The higher-ups at ESPN recognize the timely value of this perspective: Williams' new daily radio and TV show, "Keyshawn, JWill & Zubin," debuted Monday on ESPN Radio, ESPN2, and ESPNEWS. He hosts alongside former NFL wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson and longtime sports anchor Zubin Mehenti on weekdays from 6:00 to 10:00 a.m.
"Being able to have that platform to engage in conversations like this..." Williams trailed off on the other end of the phone before telling me that he was doing a sign of the cross. "My whole life has led me to this moment."
Authenticity and nuance color Williams' work on air
I first met Williams on a chilly March morning in Brooklyn — in what now feels like "a completely different universe," as he described it months later.
We walked his dog, Denzel Washington, along the East River in DUMBO, where Williams lives with his family in a converted warehouse. Then we sped across the Brooklyn Bridge at 5:30 a.m., toward twinkling Manhattan skyscrapers stretching into the still-black sky. I spent the morning with him at ESPN's studio in the South Street Seaport, just weeks before the network sent its talent home to broadcast from their basements.
Despite all that's changed, Williams' outlook on his job hasn't shifted. In a world consumed by hot takes, he told me, he takes painstaking care to deliver his points with nuance.
"If I'm a vessel — that's how I look at myself via TV — how do I articulate?" Williams said. "Instead of taking such a firm stance — 'I would never do that!' or 'That's wrong!' — how do I get more of a perspective about where that athlete is or where that individual is mentally?"
That approach can be especially apparent in Williams' treatment of Zion Williamson, the young New Orleans Pelicans superstar — and fellow Duke product — expected to become the NBA's next big thing. Williamson's promise elicits constant analysis and scrutiny, even though he's not yet old enough to legally drink alcohol.
"Everybody has the things that they focus on, and it's easy to become very myopic, but every morning I'm aware of how people pitch him: 'Oh, we're going to talk about him this way on our show,'" Williams said, adding, "Could that affect a person? Maybe I'm over-thinking it."
Or maybe he's relating to it. It wasn't long ago that Williams was in a remarkably similar position.
In 2003, Williams was on top of the world. Then in a split second, he wasn't.
As a 21-year-old phenom, Williams was coming off an impressive first season with the Chicago Bulls — a franchise searching for a star to fill the void left by Michael Jordan.
After the team selected Williams second behind Yao Ming in the 2002 NBA Draft, fans were hopeful that the 6-foot-2 point guard would assume the mantle. At Duke he'd twice earned national player of the year honors and led the Blue Devils to a national championship in 2001. Williams even took over Jordan's locker when he arrived in Chicago, a symbolic gesture that he was up to the monumental task.
His' 9.5 points and 4.7 assists per game during his rookie campaign showed promise, but it was during the following off-season that Williams started to realize superstardom was in the cards.
In his book, "Life Is Not An Accident," Williams recalled playing pickup with members of Duke's roster.
"Man, your game has gone to another level," then-Blue Devils assistant coach Chris Collins old Williams. "You are going to dominate the league next year if you keep playing like that."
But he never got the chance.
The day he got back to Chicago from that Duke visit, Williams took his motorcycle out for a ride. He knew shouldn't ride one — it was prohibited in his Bulls contract — but Williams' desire "to make my own decisions, to have some control over my own life" drove him to purchase a Yamaha R6 anyway.
That evening, he revved the engine until the motorcycle lurched forward. Its front wheel popped into the air, and Williams — who was not wearing a helmet — clutched the handlebars to wrangle the bike. Instead, he lost control and clipped the left side of his body on a utility pole while moving 50 or 60 miles per hour. He ricocheted through the air, then landed chest-first on a patch of grass by the sidewalk.
Williams couldn't feel his lower extremities — they "lay outstretched on top of each other, almost disconnected from my body on the pavement at a 90-degree angle," he says in his book.
His body went into shock, leaving him numb to most of the physical pain. But the emotional agony was acute; Williams immediately recognized the gravity of what he had done.
"I threw it all away! I threw it all away! I threw it all away!" he screamed before losing consciousness.
Williams' injuries included a severed femoral artery in his left leg, a fractured sacrum, three torn ligaments in his left knee, a ruptured peroneal nerve, and a separated pubic symphysis. He faced a threat of amputation, a chance he would never walk again, and years of rehabilitation and pain.
'Why me?'
Williams eventually walked away — yes, walked — with an after-effect of nerve damage called foot drop that prevents him from lifting the front of his foot. The fact that he was walking at all was a miracle, but his mental recovery process didn't mirror the physical one.
"I ran away from my accident for so long," Williams said. "I tried to move as far away from it instead of owning it and saying 'this is part of my journey.'"
At first, he put all his energy into returning to the hardwood; some three years later, he improbably made his way onto the New Jersey Nets' roster.
"The goal was to get back and play and recoup what I lost," Williams said. "I lost something. I lost who I was becoming, and who I was becoming was a person that got a lot of attention, a person that got a lot of fame, and a person that was finally achieving success."
He added, "I felt like the court allowed me to be me — without the court, I didn't know who me was."
But less than a month after signing with the team, he was waived.
Once he stepped away from professional basketball for good, Williams began the arduous process of discovering his identity without the rock in his hands. For a while, that constituted managing his pain via some unhealthy coping mechanisms.
He took OxyContin as prescribed, but became addicted to the opioid while simultaneously drinking in excess. He struggled with depression and sparred with suicidal thoughts. He refused to wear shorts, hiding the scars from his injuries at all costs. Even when his legs were covered, though, Williams said he constantly got "a look of sorrow and pity from people, like 'Oh my god, you had this, and you lost it?'"
He was living an angry and resentful existence in New York City.
"I used to ask this question all the time when I got hurt: 'Why me?'" Williams said. "'Why me?' All the time. 'Why me?'"
A second chance at ESPN
One day, Williams' father posed the question he'd been harping on back to him: "Why not you?" he said. "Maybe your shoulders are broad enough to carry that burden to help others."
He may not have internalized the message right away, but once he did, his life began to take on meaning again. Williams moved back to Durham, North Carolina, where he helped mentor Duke players.
Five years after his accident, he became a full-time college basketball analyst for ESPN, then worked his way up the ranks and eventually moved back to New York.
But this time, he took on the city and his job with a renewed sense of purpose.
"What are you here for if you're not trying to be better? Are you just wasting time? Are you just floating with no purpose?" he said. "That's fine. People go through it — I did it for a while. But, I don't know, going through my experience, I don't want to float anymore. I want to provide meaning to what I do."
Later, on a serendipitous trip back to Durham for a speaking engagement at Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium, a young businesswoman in the crowd caught Williams' eye. He approached her as she put up shots from the hardwood.
"I don't know who Jay Williams is. I don't care," Nikki Bonacorsi recalled. "I was like, I'm just trying to enjoy my moment right now. I haven't had a chance to play basketball in a while ... I just was more excited to play on the court."
But Williams was undeterred.
"He kept coming over," Bonacorsi said. "He asked for my number and then went to leave for the airport to do 'Mike and Mike' the next morning. And so I thought, I'm never going to see this guy again, and I don't really care."
Shortly thereafter, Williams returned to the gym with his suitcase in tow. His flight had been canceled, he told her. He was lying.
They hung out that night in Durham, then the next, then later went on another date in New York.
"The rest is kind of history," Bonacorsi said. The two married in May 2018 and had their first child, Amelia Brooklyn-Rose, later that year.
"She's my why," Williams said of his wife.
The spotlight on Williams and the constant exposure to a world consumed with wealth and status has been an adjustment for Bonacorsi.
"It's hard for me. We go to these severely public gatherings because of him," Bonacorsi said. "It's new for me, and I'm more interested about the depth of somebody. I don't really care about the cosmetic stuff."
"I like that my wife doesn't like going to premieres," he added. "Having your photograph taken, it makes you feel like you're elevated, like 'Oh, I'm different' — unless you're lucky enough to have somebody that serves as a constant reminder of what your flaws are and how you can work on yourself."
Williams' wisdom is serving him well professionally
ESPN is by no means Williams' only gig.
Just months after taking Williams on as a client, Barry Klarberg — the founder and CEO of Monarch Business and Wealth Management as well as an owner of New York City FC and the New York Yankees — made Williams a partner in his business.
"It's rare you run into somebody like this with this type of talent, with the history that he went through — he's different, he's smart, he gets it," Klarberg said. "I think one of the things that made him who he is today is what he went through in his own career."
Williams also recently became a chief entertainment and lifestyle advisor for CEO Steven Moy's digital creative agency, Barbarian. And on top of that, he owns and operates The Cabin NYC, a rustic bar-restaurant in the East Village, with two of his best friends, Joey Aponte and Dresden "Dre" Baluyot. The two grew up with Williams in New Jersey and were there for him after the accident, supporting him as he struggled to deal with his loss and anger.
When Williams and I stopped by The Cabin on that day in March, he shouted "Lovas!" to Aponte and Baluyot as he walked in, then hugged both men. None of us anticipated what was to come as we clinked glasses and munched on pizza slices.
Williams and his co-owners were forced to furlough 50% of The Cabin staff after New York went into lockdown later that month. Though the restaurant has reopened for outdoor dining, Williams said recouping their losses is "going to be an uphill battle."
Everything has changed — except for Williams
The bar is just one of many aspects of Williams' life that the pandemic altered fundamentally. He now goes live on television from his Brooklyn home each day, while his wife and daughter are just a room away.
Williams is also trying to help various family members stay healthy; his mother is immunocompromised and at high risk of severe complications from COVID-19, while his 2-year-old daughter dealt with respiratory issues earlier in the year. His family is being very careful and "staying bunkered in Brooklyn," Williams said.
He's also been grappling with the social unrest and protests stemming from the death of George Floyd. That has brought "a whirlwind of emotions for me and my family," he said.
Williams said he feels an expectation and responsibility to discuss issues of race publicly.
"It's been a challenge every single day going on camera," he said. "This slight sense of anxiety comes along with that, knowing that my words could be used against me if I'm not exact. I strategize on what I say and how I say it. It's a little bit stressful, but that's a new normal that we live in now, and we're all trying to adjust."
He hopes to use the new show, he added, to "expound upon these types of issues" and to "dig deeper and try to find a space where we can create connectivity and bring people together."
If anyone is prepared to tackle such a complex, emotionally charged moment, it's a man who fell off a mountaintop, hit rock bottom, then climbed back up.
"I think we are at a monumental time in the history of our country, where people are forced to look in the mirror and have conversations with themselves about what they stand for," Williams said. "For me, I've had that in my life. I got hurt, and I was messed up psychologically for a while. I was forced to have conversations with myself. And my wife still forces me to have conversations about our marriage, about our kid, about me, about her all the time."
Overall, he added, he's still oscillating between feeling "extremely blessed" and "incredibly guilty" as he starts a new gig in the face of an economic crisis that has left millions without jobs. Still, now more than ever, Williams said he hopes to offer a nuanced perspective during a divisive moment.
"Life is complex for a lot of people. It's not easy just to label somebody black or white — no pun intended — right?" Williams said. "A lot of life is spent in the between area, in the gray area. I want to explore what that gray area is."
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