Jayson Williams has some stories. In a nine-year career, Williams experiences many things in the NBA. Additionally, his off-the-court endeavors make for intriguing but tragic storytelling.
Williams recently appeared on a podcast with VICE Sports and talked about everything from Larry Bird’s trash talk to Charles Barkley’s terrible eating habits to the size of Manute Bol’s…well, you know.
Williams also spoke about his off court issues, namely the accidental shooting of his limousine driver. That incident led to the big man being convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to prison. Williams’ time in prison, as well as his subsequent troubles with alcohol, are a tragic story, but one that is immensely intriguing.
Huge tip of the hat to Ben Rohrbach of Yahoo Sports for the following transcriptions:
On Manute Bol:
“They used to let Manute Bol drink the whole time, so he would drink Heinekens all day long to help put on weight,” said Williams, who played his first two NBA seasons alongside Bol as teammates on the Philadelphia 76ers from 1990-92, “so Manute Bol never played sober in one basketball game.”
After a lengthy story about the size of the 7-foot-7 Bol’s privates, Williams added, “He used to put on all his clothes last, so what he would do, after he got out the shower, he would put on his socks and then that was it. And he would just walk around the locker room naked drinking Heinekens.”
Bol was listed at 28 years old when he began playing for the Sixers in 1990, but Williams believes he was actually twice that age. “He used to say that he was 35 years old, but I used to be on the bench looking at all the circles and scars around his head,” explained Williams, “and I asked him one day, ‘Manute, what are those scars on your head?’ And he says, ‘Well, the white man lost my birth certificate in the jungle, so every five years I take a rock and I slice one across my head.’ I was like, ‘All right,’ and then I started looking at it the next game and I said, ‘Holy s—, Manute Bol is 55 years old.’”
On Charles Barkley:
“You knew he wasn’t going to win a championship. He was the worst person to play with as a rookie, because when you went in you got all the bad habits from him. You stayed out all night, and then you couldn’t figure out why you didn’t have it in the game. It’s because when Charles came to practice, he didn’t practice.” Instead, said Williams, Barkley would arrive at practice with a McDonald’s bag of breakfast, sit on the stationary bike and eat eggs, sausage, maple syrup and butter wrapped in a pancake while yelling at his Philly teammates, “Run the floor, you lazy bastards.”
On Larry Bird:
“He struts back like only Larry Bird can do, looks over the bench and goes, ‘Hey, coach, put the rookie in.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, put me in; you better hope he don’t put me in.’ And then Jimmy [Lynam] goes, ‘Hey, Jay, go get him,’ and I go in. I go, ‘Yeah, what you wanna do? Come at me, baby, let’s go, let’s get it on,’ and he gives me a pump fake, and I jumped clear across his head, and when I come back down, he looks at me and goes, ‘Stupid rookie, c’mon, man,’ and hits a 3-pointer.” Williams claims he honestly considered suicide after Bird dropped a series of 3’s and a dunk on him, adding, “Oh, s—, I got dunked on by a white man who’s at the end of his career. It’s a wrap now.”
On the assault case and the consequences:
He described how the incident has haunted him ever since; how Oakley and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Curtis Martin were the only two people to visit him in prison; how he’s been passed over for employment, particularly at his alma mater; and how fellow St. John’s alum Chris Mullin, who overcame alcohol problems in his own NBA career, helped pull him from a downward spiral that left him “drinking moonshine and losing my mind” at a secluded cabin in the woods 128 days ago.
“Any time you accidentally take a life of somebody, definitely, sleep deprivation, everything comes,” he said. “Take something from a man, everything he has and everything he would have, is terrible, and I’m not the victim here. It’s just something you can’t get over, and forgiving myself is something you think you can do. It’s much easier said than done, and I go into places where I can’t sleep. Then I started drinking and I get grouchy and angry and I get heavy and I hide and I’m no good to anybody.
“I’m one of those guys whose service to others is the rent I pay here on Earth, so I’ll just get into a pattern where I’m self pity and just a mess to be around and just go hide in a cabin in the woods on 300 acres and nobody will see me for two, three weeks and just be that selfish. So, I’m always haunted by that night, and I don’t know what to do about it but just try and be a better human being every day and help others. That’s why I wanted to be a part of St. John’s University so bad. I needed that.”
Jayson Williams is currently enrolled in a treatment center. As he puts it, just a single drink could once again make him lose everything. Fortunately, it appears that he is doing well enough to speak about it publicly. Hopefully, he continues his upwards trajectory.
