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M. Quentin Williams on ESPN (08/2007)
M. Quentin Williams : Lowgators presidency another notch on long, impressive resume
The Post & Courier – Charleston, South Carolina
Published on 10/27/01
BY RICK NELSON
The Post and Courier Staff
His mother is a former flower child who lived in communes and counseled prison inmates. His dad left before he was born in the Virgin Islands. His first real home was a rundown tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where graduation meant going from misdemeanors to felonies.
Despite it all, or maybe because of it, M. Quentin Williams decided to prove that it doesn’t matter where you start in life. It’s where you finish.
“I’ve been extremely fortunate,” Williams says. “I’ve had the opportunity to do some interesting things, and all of them prepared me to get to this point.”
Williams is president of the North Charleston Lowgators, one of eight teams in the NBA’s new National Basketball Development League (NBDL). The minor league, which makes its debut next month, is set up to develop players and front-office personnel for the NBA. For Williams, the NBDL is yet another entry on a resume that already reads like a blueprint for overachievers.
In high school, he graduated fifth in his class while blossoming into an all-state football and track star. He spurned scholarship offers from nearly three dozen schools before deciding on Boston College, where he was a two-sport athlete and dean’s list student. He fell in love with the law, became a malpractice defense lawyer and later an assistant U.S. attorney. He chased kidnappers and bombers as an FBI agent. He helped formulate league policies as an executive with the NFL, and he negotiated multimillion-dollar player contracts for the Jacksonville Jaguars.That’s a whole lot of living for anyone, let alone someone just 35 years old. And it doesn’t even count an eclectic mix of part-time jobs he’s held over the years, a list that includes working as a bouncer at a Manhattan nightclub and transporting nuns into New York City. Read More