THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504210637
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
George Williams barely knew track from field when he was asked to coach the sport at St. Augustine's College in 1975.
``I was all-everything in basketball,'' Williams says. ``One day they just asked me to coach track.''
It turned out to be one of the wisest decisions the administration at little St. Aug's, enrollment 1,800, has ever made.
Williams began his coaching career by reading a book - Dr. Leroy T. Walker's bible on the sport, titled ``Championship Techniques in Track and Field.''
Lately, his teams have been rewriting the NCAA record book. St. Augustine's, which will be at Norfolk State today and tomorrow for the CIAA track meet, has won 13 Division II track titles since 1985, including the last six outdoor titles, an NCAA record.
How does Williams do it?
``Only the Lord knows,'' he says. ``I guess the good Lord just blessed this program.''
His athletes say the Williams method is a combination of tough love and technical know-how.
``He stays on us; he'll never let us fall back,'' says middle-distance runner Joe King, a Norview High graduate. ``It's academics first, track second.''
Williams claims a graduation rate of 98 percent even though many of his athletes come to school with spotty academic records. King, for example, was ineligible for much of his Norview career and needed summer school and night school just to graduate.
He's on schedule to graduate at St. Aug's, though.
``He wants you to come talk to him every day,'' Otis Scott, ranked third in the nation by Track and Field News in the 400 meters, said of Williams. ``Your grades come before everything.''
Scott's not the only world-class competitor at the Raleigh school. Ryan Hayden is ranked fifth in the 400-meter hurdles and Marlon Cannon is sixth in the 400. King was second in the 800 at the U.S. Olympic Festival last year.
``George just goes and gets these kids,'' says Walt Green, the Maury girls coach and founder of the Atlantic Coast Track Club. ``He should be the president of St. Aug's.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Under George Williams, St. Augustine's
has won 13 Div. II titles since 1985.
by CNB