The NBA Player I Went to School With

I have met some pretty interesting people over the years. One was a 6’ 7” tall guy named Sly Williams.

Sly was a first-round pick by the New York Knicks. He played in the NBA for 7 seasons, finishing out with a short stint for the Boston Celtics. He’s the only person I have known who played in the NBA.

I knew him before all that, when we were both in college. Just to be clear - we were not buddies, we did not hang out. We played ping pong, said hello when we passed in the halls, and shared beer and pizza once or twice at dorm parties. I actually spent more time with his little brother who would often hang out at the dorm during basketball season. 

Sly had promised to attend Providence College (PC) and play men’s basketball but, surprisingly, showed up at the University of Rhode Island (URI) on the first day of school in the Fall of 1979 and registered for classes. Naturally, the folks at PC were quite upset and the folks at URI were overjoyed. 

By-the-way, Sly parked his brand new, brown Cadillac right behind the dorm directly in front of the ‘No Parking Fire Lane’ sign. Odd that he was never ticketed or towed. And, how did a kid from the New Haven projects with 11 brothers and sisters even get a new Cadillac anyway? Things that make you go, “hmmmmmmm.”

Let’s face it, Sly’s college career was all about preparing for the pros. He never went to class, he was often late to practice. His coach suspended him multiple times for breaking team rules, but, somehow, he was able to play in each and every game for three seasons. 

At the end of his last basketball season, his junior year, Sly left campus. The next time we saw him was when he was drafted in the first round, 21st overall, by the New York Knicks. Sly wore number 33 and the Knicks were awful. They would stay awful until the next player to wear number 33 arrived - Hall-of-Famer Patrick Ewing. 

Sly’s career was nothing special. After four lackluster years, the Knicks traded him to the Atlanta Hawks and they were pretty bad, too. Finally, he ended up with the Boston Celtics in the Fall of 1985. Sly was beset with personal, injury and heath issues. The Celtics cut him about a month into the season. 

Too bad for Sly. That team went on to win the 1986 NBA championship and is largely regarded as one of the greatest basketball teams ever assembled - featuring five future hall of fame players. They were so good, that the subs - players 6 through 10 - could have been a playoff team in their own right. Sly could have been part of that, but he missed out. 

After basketball, Sly’s life spiraled out of control and he was, eventually, incarcerated for a string of violent crimes. 

I poked around on the internet and found part of a short documentary that was done about him, but I could only find the first of three parts.

Sly sits on two of my personal lists of interesting people I have known - a surprisingly long list of folks I have met who have gone to prison and a much shorter list of people I have met who played professional athletics.

To be sure, Sly has lived an interesting life, and I knew him just a little bit way back when.