Genise Williams was overcome with emotion the night she first saw her eldest son on TV, dressed in Washington State’s crimson and gray uniform, walking onto the field with his teammates.
At 5-foot-11, 199 pounds, with lightning-quick feet, instincts you can’t teach and an unquenchable desire to improve himself, James Williams II had a breakthrough performance in a 56-6 win over Idaho on Sept. 17, when the redshirt freshman rushed 14 times for 126 yards and scored his first collegiate touchdown.
Home in Burbank, Calif., and watching their son’s big game from Barney’s Beanery, where WSU alums gather to cheer on the Cougars, Genise and James Williams were struck by the magnitude of what they had pulled off in a few short years.