March 3, 2007
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Williams Buoyed By Hometown Support
By Will Matthews
DULUTH, Ga. – Linda Hatcher, Caroline Williams’ eighth grade teacher in Rockmart, Ga., can still remember the first time she ever laid eyes on the girl who has become the pride of the small, close-knit town that sits about 50 miles northwest of Atlanta.
“She was about six years old and she was outside dribbling the ball in the middle of the road,” Hatcher recalled. “Another one of her teachers came up to me and said. `That’s Caroline Williams, the best athlete in town.'”
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| Rockmart native Caroline Williams owns the highest three-point shooting percentage in Vanderbilt women’s basketball history. |
Williams, now a senior guard for the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team, has come a long way since those days as a young child in Rockmart. A second team All-SEC selection and the national leader in three-point shooting accuracy, Williams in many ways is the heart and soul of a Commodore team enjoying one of its most successful seasons in several years.
But for the approximately 4,500 people that comprise the community of Rockmart, not a whole lot has changed over the years, at least when it comes to what many say is the most successful female athlete to ever come out of Northwest Georgia.
They adore Williams today as much – if not more, even – as they ever have. And just as they did over fifteen years ago in anticipation of what folks in Rockmart were sure would ultimately become an athletic career that would be known well beyond the limits of their town, they follow her every move.
Now, with the Southeastern Conference Tournament being held in Duluth, an Atlanta suburb that is just over an hour’s drive from Rockmart, Williams’ biggest fans are taking advantage of one of their final opportunities to cheer on their hometown hero, a girl who has become one of college basketball’s elite players despite having to walk on to the Vanderbilt team as a freshman four years ago.
Close to 60 people from Rockmart – including immediate family, several of Williams’ former grade school teachers and members of the local United Methodist church Williams grew up in – were on hand Friday to watch Williams shoot a perfect 5 for 5 from the floor and hit all four of her three-point attempts while scoring 16 first half points in Vanderbilt’s 105-77 quarterfinal rout of Florida.
“It is real special for us being that it is Caroline’s senior year especially, that she can play here with so many fans,” said Williams’ mother Carol Williams. “That means a lot to us and it means a lot to her. Being from a small town, she has a lot of hometown support and following and it means a lot to them especially being that this more than likely will be their last time to see her play the college game.”
It is, in many ways, a storybook ending to Williams’ collegiate career – and an ending that would have been unlikely at best just four years ago. A severe knee injury that she suffered during her junior year in high school scared off most any major college that might have been interested in recruiting her, including the University of Georgia whom Vanderbilt fill face in tonight’s semifinal.
But Vanderbilt Head Coach Melanie Balcomb gave Williams a chance by offering her a roster spot as a walk-on, an opportunity that Williams has sought to take advantage of from day one by coming in and working as hard as she could.
“Everything that she has gotten during her career, she has earned,” Balcomb said of Williams. “She is one of the hardest working players that I have ever coached.”
Balcomb attributes Williams’ work ethic to her parents, and Williams’ parents, in turn, attribute it to growing up in a small town environment in which hard work is valued over most everything else and to being reared by a community that never once allowed her to believe that anything less than the very best was well within her reach.
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| Will Matthews talks with Caroline Williams’ parents, Carol (left) and David (right). |
“We are from a really small high school that is not very successful on the state level,” said Carol Williams, who has lived in Rockmart since she was 14-years-old and who, like her daughter, played basketball at Rockmart High School. “Caroline only went to the state playoffs her senior year. But the thing about our community is that people are always telling the kids that if you work hard and if you have determination that you can be successful personally. And I think that was important for Caroline as she was growing up. That’s one of her Daddy’s life lessons.”
Williams’ father, David Williams, said he and his wife have attempted to instill in all of their children the importance of working hard, a concept he says has helped his daughter achieve the kind of success she has at Vanderbilt.
“We have always tried to teach our kids to give it all that you have got all of the time,” said David Williams, who along with his wife have missed only one Vanderbilt game all year. “Caroline had to work her way up the ranks at Vanderbilt. We have instilled in her the idea that you have got to work hard to get where you want to go and that if you work hard and if you strive to do your best, good things will come.”
For Williams, that certainly has been the case during her career at Vanderbilt. She could well become one of only 28 players in Vanderbilt history to score 1,000 points in her career, and she will end her career with the highest three-point shooting percentage in the program’s history.
And her loyal legion of followers in Rockmart has been with her every step of the way.
“I think when you are from a small town or a small area that is really close-knit, you’re accomplishments, your trials, your tribulations, everything is shared,” Carol Williams said. “You know that if things are going well, you have support. If things are not going well, you have support. You have people who care about you, who care for you all the time.”
For the community of Rockmart then, any accomplishment of Williams’ is an accomplishment that it, too, can claim.
“Caroline is just like one of our family,” said Dana Clark, who played basketball with Williams’ mother at Rockmart High and whose husband coached Williams in baseball. “The whole town of Rockmart has always been so proud and supportive of Caroline and we are just very proud to be able to be a part of it.”
Will Matthews spent three years as an investigative reporter with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group in Southern California. He is currently in his third year at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
