Williams uses experience to shape future
Feb. 26, 2010
Natalie England, TexasSports.com AUSTIN, Texas -- When No. 14 Texas hosts Missouri next Wednesday, the Longhorns will take a few moments before tipoff to honor the careers of their three seniors. Earnesia Williams will be honored for the second time, after deciding late last spring to play out her redshirt season. Williams is wrapping up her service with the Longhorns on a pair of hobbled knees -- the reason she was granted the medical hardship. Williams, however, has made her time here feel like anything but. She has a knack for turning experience into blessing, and used that mindset during her daily visits to the treatment room. Rehabilitating her knees also exercised Williams' curiosity. "I was always asking questions," she says. "I wanted to know why I couldn't do certain movements, or if I was strong enough in this muscle or that muscle. Through that process, I just came to know how important it all really is." Williams, who graduated last May with an education degree, will attempt the WNBA Draft this April, or possibly play professionally overseas, but she's already locked her focus on a career in kinesiology. Following the guidance of women's basketball trainer Terry Lynn Furuta, and strength and conditioning coaches Logan Schwartz and Todd Wright, Williams is planning to become a trainer and life fitness coach. She'll enter graduate school, and put to use her recently-awarded NCAA postgraduate scholarship. Williams has also been selected to take part in the eighth annual WBCA's So You Want To Be A Coach program -- a two-and-a-half day workshop in conjunction with the WBCA National Convention in San Antonio during the NCAA Women's Final Four. The 2010 class marks the largest in the eight years of the program and is sponsored by the WBCA, the NCAA Diversity and Inclusion, NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee and the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics.
The program was designed to increase the number of women in the coaching profession, with an emphasis on female minorities, by providing a workshop based on educational and professional principles to help those interested in the field. Last spring, Williams interned at the local sports fitness institute, Train for the Game. "It's important to relay the message of health," Williams says. "A lot of people don't know the nutrition bodies really need, and what is healthy." |
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