Texas\u2019 win over UTSA on Saturday<\/a>, rekindled all the heartfelt emotions within him and renewed his perspective.<\/p>\nWilliams told the Houston Chronicle that Del Conte kidded him and said Texas can\u2019t have a Hall of Honor inductee who didn\u2019t have a diploma. That stirred something within the former first-round pick of the Buffalo Bills.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s long since stepped away from the NFL after four injury-filled seasons with the Bills and a short one-year stint with Washington. His career was cut short by an occurrence of blood clots that led to his retirement.<\/p>\n
He has no regrets but with one exception.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI wish it could have been longer,\u201d he said. \u201cBuffalo was great. I love me some Buffalo.\u201d<\/p>\n
His shortened time there didn\u2019t leave him embittered. Instead, it emboldened him to better understand adversity and the need to respond positively. That\u2019s a lesson he frequently shares with his 13-year-old daughter Mia, who is a budding wrestling star and is aiming for the 2032 Olympics. He learned from a series of medical setbacks to listen to his body rather than to just push through the pain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt taught me a lot that I can impart to Mia,\u201d Williams said of his daughter, who took up Brazilian jujitsu at age 7 and was once asked to join her middle-school football team as a running back. \u201cI\u2019ve told her to be like Wonder Woman. She can be as girly as can be, but when she steps on the mat, her mentality fits her nickname, which is Pit Bull. She is not mean, just hyper-focused.\u201d<\/p>\n
So was Mike who had more than his share of calamity. It started when he learned he had blood clots in his calf in the 2010 offseason after he\u2019d started eight games for Washington.<\/p>\n
His problems began when he started having trouble breathing. His right calf hurt. His heart was racing. He thought about the criticism he received when some said the 6-foot-6, 345-pounder was just out of shape. Typical overweight lineman, some sniped.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019d been out of shape before,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this was different. When you\u2019re an athlete, you believe you can almost push through anything that might be debilitating to non-athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he received the initial diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis, Williams shrugged and said OK. What medicine does he need? Give him a prescription and let him get back to practice. Why the long faces?<\/p>\n
Well, the blood clots in his calf had broken free and traveled to his lungs. He was told he was suffering from a pulmonary embolism and would be on blood thinners forever. He\u2019d lost all function of his right side.<\/p>\n
That spelled the end of his pro career, but it wasn\u2019t the last of his severe medical hardships.<\/p>\n
![\"Mike]()
<\/p>\n
Mike Williams’ time at Texas included hosting “The Mike Williams Show” on the school’s athletics website with guests such as teammate\u00a0Everick Rawls (left).<\/p>\n
Courtesy\/Digital File_EMAIL<\/p>\n
Three years ago, he awoke at 3 a.m. He was sweating profusely. He got up to use the restroom but had trouble seeing. He stood up and immediately felt weakness in the entire right side of his body. He had double vision. The room was spinning.<\/p>\n
His wife Jamie asked him what was wrong. Williams shrugged it off and asked for some aspirin. She grew more concerned and convinced him he needed to go to the emergency room. He reluctantly complied.<\/p>\n
In the examination room, the attending physician checked out his symptoms and immediately diagnosed the problem<\/p>\n
Williams, 43, had suffered a stroke.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what you want to hear,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
He knew he was in for a long recovery. He had trouble walking and had to undergo weeks of physical therapy. He could barely speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t formulate my words,\u201d said Williams, who once suffered from a bad stuttering problem. \u201cI could visualize the words in my brain, but I couldn\u2019t get them out.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s just now weaning himself off the cane that accompanied him for almost three years. The strength in his right side hasn\u2019t completely returned. His knee will occasionally give out. But he\u2019s returning to good health and counts his blessings.<\/p>\n
His time at Texas wasn\u2019t always rosy, either.<\/p>\n
He told reporters last week that he almost quit the Texas football team during his freshman year. In fact, he might have, had not Longhorn assistant coach\u00a0Hardee McCrary not taken a personal interest in The Colony graduate whom he and line coach Tim Nunez recruited.<\/p>\n
“I almost wanted to quit. True story,” Williams said. “I was a freshman, I actually wanted to go home. Mack Brown and all the team were on the field, and Hardee McCrary actually sat there with me and said, ‘Hey, don’t worry about practice, stay here, let’s talk.’ It was just kind of like that freshman wall. But the next morning, I got up and I was just fine, and then the rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n
A remarkable history, considering he\u2019d never played in the offensive line in high school.<\/p>\n
After toggling between the offensive and defensive line as a freshman, as did teammate Leonard Davis, Williams played in the Cotton Bowl win over Mississippi State as the team\u2019s fifth defensive lineman before becoming a full-time offensive tackle.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll never forget the traumatic death of Pittman, the defensive tackle who died when his pickup truck swerved off the road on U.S. 79 on his return to Austin from his home in Shreveport, La. He can still recall the entire team gathering at midfield at DKR under gray skies and singing “The Eyes of Texas” at practice.<\/p>\n
Eight months after the tragedy, the Longhorns opened the season against North Carolina, Brown\u2019s former team, and beat the Tar Heels with freshman tailback Cedric Benson scoring his first touchdown. Texas wore a CP decal on its helmets. Brett Robin capped the emotional day when he scored on a 12-yard run with 36 seconds to play to make it 44-14, but quarterback Major Applewhite took a knee instead of running the extra-point try. Pittman\u2019s jersey number was 44.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember Cory Redding yelling on the sideline to look at the scoreboard to leave the score,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThat was meant to be. It was a perfect sendoff for Cole.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Williams had a full college experience he treasures to this day. He still checks in with teammates like Ahmad Brooks and Lee Jackson and Derrick Dockery. He regularly watches Texas\u2019 games but admits it can be \u201cvery stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams started 28 games for the Longhorns and was a consensus All-American as a senior. He was selected fourth in the 2002 NFL draft, and became one of Texas\u2019 15 top-five draft picks in history.<\/p>\n
Many of those memories came back to him last weekend while watching the Longhorns beat the Roadrunners. As he stared down at the field below from the Founders suite at DKR, he was overwhelmed with positive reflections. And a bit of bravado.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remembered the feeling and felt I could get out there and play right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI was fired up. I think I could give \u2018em a good five plays. That\u2019s just the ballplayer in you. It never goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Williams (63) was a consensus All-America offensive tackle as a Texas senior and first-round pick in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-445896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}