Life Is Not an Accident

by Jay Williams

  At this point the mental anguish was far more intense than the physical agony I was in. The only relief was morphine, and that would prove to be the beginning of a long and troubling road of self-medicating.

  It’s common for patients in the ICU to lose the ability to track time, due to irregular sleeping hours and heavy medication. Sometimes I would wake up at two in the morning with a jolt of pain in my pelvis and be up until that evening. Nurses constantly checked in to make sure they knew the number of my pain on a scale from one to ten. The answer was always the same. Fifteen.

  Pumped full of painkillers and suffering from sleep deprivation, I began to hallucinate. A week or so into my stay, I told my dad I was going crazy. Every time I closed my eyes, I would hit the pole. Over and over again, each time harder than the last, while hearing that horrible cracking sound of the bike colliding with the pole. Another night, I woke up and started screaming for help because I thought my bed was on the ceiling. My dad grabbed my hand and told me that he was right next to me, and I would yell, “Help me. Please help me. You’re not next to me, Dad. I am on the ceiling, you are on the ground, and I am trying to reach you. I can’t reach you. Why won’t you help me?” It was scary losing control of not only my body but my mind as well.

  It wasn’t until a week or so later that Kevin decided to share with me just how bad my injuries were. He told me how the doctors had been unsure if they’d be able to save my left leg. Or whether I would survive the surgery to stop the internal bleeding.

  I still don’t know how many surgeries I had after the accident. My left knee was totally dislocated, every ligament torn. I’d completely ripped my hamstring off the bone. My pelvis was dislocated. I’d severed the peroneal nerve in my left leg. There is a scar that runs from my ankle all the way up to my mid-thigh on the outside of that same leg, courtesy of the fasciectomy the doctors performed in order to save my leg. I also split a major artery, causing displaced blood to begin to fill the leg. To relieve the pressure, surgeons made a series of deep incisions in my leg, essentially filleting it, to release the blood. I needed more than 100 staples to patch the muscle and skin back together. Afterwards, I couldn’t bear to look at my body; it was unrecognizable, and the pain still lingers on today, though not as intense.

  Just four days later, while I was still in the ICU, the NBA draft took place, and the Bulls selected Kirk Hinrich from Kansas with the seventh pick overall. All it took was one visit, days earlier, from our newly hired general manager, John Paxson, to make up his mind. He replaced me. There’s a reason why Paxson is still the executive VP of operations for the franchise. Like he had in his playing days, he ended up with a clutch pick as Hinrich turned into a solid pro.

  I WAS IN bed, unable to recognize myself as I drifted in and out of consciousness, just staring at the tiles of a popcorn ceiling above. The drugs helped only so much to block out the moans and screams coming from patients in other rooms. The smell. An odor that exists only in a space where many are crying and bleeding, clinging to life. The morphine drips couldn’t trickle down fast enough. I would open my eyes, take one look at what I’d done to myself the night before, and pass out again. This was my second night in ICU hell at Illinois Masonic.

  The next day—don’t ask me what time—a figure emerged from the doorway of my room, walking toward me. At first I just assumed it was a doctor or someone else who worked there. But all it took was a couple of steps and I knew exactly who it was.

  Three years earlier, around the time I committed to Duke, Coach K had undergone joint replacement surgery for his left hip. Ever since, his gait would favor one side over the other. It was a walk I knew all too well. We locked eyes, as we had so many times before; tears streamed down both of my cheeks as he clutched my right hand. I was overwhelmed with emotion—my second father had arrived. I blacked out once again.

  I was groggy when I came to, which was when I looked to my right at K, still holding my hand.

  “I’m never going to play again.” I began to sob.

  I had been mourning all that I had thrown away, and now I was overcome with guilt, ashamed that I had let him down.

  He let go of his firm grasp, reached into his pocket, and took out a pendant. He told me it was his mother’s rosary as he put it in my hand.

  “Give this back to me when you play again, because you are going to play again.”

  I looked directly at him, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He demanded that I hear him and feel what he was saying.

  “Look at me,” he said with conviction. “You’re going to play again.”

  I am certain he was distraught seeing one of his many sons in such a horrifying condition, but he refused to show sadness or disappointment. Instead he stood by my side, not allowing me the option of giving up.

  Of all the memories I have of playing for Coach K—and I have many—that moment in Illinois Masonic is my fondest. He will always give every ounce of himself to help you become the best version of yourself. It doesn’t stop when you’re done playing for him. If you need him, he’s there without your having to ask.

  That’s a man. That’s a coach.

  AFTER CLOSE TO a month at Illinois Masonic, Coach K and Duke went out of pocket to fly me in a private medical plane to Durham, where I was admitted to Duke University Hospital for another month. In August, my parents rented a house in Durham, where I spent countless days in a hospital bed that was brought in.

  It was the first time in about six and a half weeks that I was sleeping in a house and not a hospital. I was high on OxyContin and virtually out of it on a regular basis. The drugs numbed the physical pain but didn’t do anything to quell the mental agony I was in. They plunged me into my own personal hell. I had nothing but time to think about the accident and what I had done to myself.

  I became obsessive about how I was going to handle confronting the world. This was before the social media era, when something like this would’ve been impossible to escape from. Rather than tweets and postings, I received literally thousands of handwritten letters from people all across the world. The story had gone global.

  WILLIAMS’ CAREER IN JEOPARDY AFTER MOTORCYCLE CRASH

  BULLS’ GUARD JAY WILLIAMS BREAKS LEG IN MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT

  JAY WILLIAMS’S FUTURE CLOUDY AFTER CRASH

  I fantasized about the things people were saying to one another at work, at the gym, while out for dinner. Everywhere. Things like I wonder if he’s ever going to be able to walk again . . . What a fucking moron . . . There goes the money. All the things I could imagine myself saying if the shoe were on the other foot.

  In my darkest moments, I would think about never being able to have sex again. The pelvis injury had caused such severe nerve damage that I’m lucky to be able to get an erection today. I would wonder if I would even be able to have a family one day when the time was right. And if so, would I ever be able to show my kid how to round first base or shoot a layup? It was a compilation of one depressing thought after another, leaving me on the edge of a cliff, readying myself to jump.

  One evening, my mom left the room and I noticed on my nightstand a pair of scissors that was used to change my bandages. Without a second thought, I stretched as far as possible to grab them. Being able to reach them was an accomplishment in its own right, considering I could barely move. The fact that I had them in my hand seemed like a sign that I was meant to kill myself. It was as if they had been strategically placed there by some divine power letting me know what I should do.

  With my right hand, I opened the scissors and held one of the blades against my left wrist. When I looked at the tattoo on my wrist—BELIEVE—I hesitated for a couple of seconds, and then drew the blade directly across the word, thinking, I don’t believe in shit anymore. I was so physically weak, and the blade so dull, that no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t cut deep enough. The Oxy probably didn’t help my coordination, either. I was so frail and emaciated—my arms were the size of sticks, and I weighed 140 pounds, 55
less than on the day of my accident—that after each superficial cut I was physically drained.

  On my third attempt to open a vein, my mother walked into the room, saw what I was doing, and in a frantic state grabbed the scissors out of my hand.

  “Jason, are you trying to hurt yourself?!”

  “Mom, I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t think I can live with what I’ve done to myself.”

  She started crying hysterically, begging me to promise I would never try to take my life again. Then she grabbed my hand and started to pray.

  I guess God was not done with me yet.

  3

  Gray Area

  When I was growing up in Plainfield, New Jersey, my parents threw these fantastic parties at our house. I loved having people over, because that meant laughter and good company. Being an only child had its obvious advantages—no annoying siblings and a room to myself—but it also got lonely at times. Maybe that’s why I overthink things so much as an adult, never having had brothers or sisters to talk to while growing up. At these get-togethers, there were plenty of kids my own age to hang out with, and I got to see my parents behave very lovingly toward each other. In some ways they may have been putting on an act for guests, but I’d like to think that maybe it helped rekindle something genuine between them.

  My mom, Althea Bowman Williams, is outgoing, energetic, the kind of person who comes to life when people are around. She’s also incredibly well-spoken and intelligent. After college she became a teacher, but my earliest memories were of her working as a guidance counselor. When I was in elementary school, she decided to go back to college to earn additional degrees in education. Not long after I left home for school, she accepted a position as principal at Plainfield High School.

  My dad, David Williams is more reserved than my mom, preferring to spend quality time by himself either reading, working, or playing with the dog. It’s not that he’s antisocial; he was just always more comfortable at home, his safe haven where things are the way he likes them to be.

  They met and fell in love at “the” Ohio State University—as they have trained me to say since birth. But when my dad accepted a job in Manhattan with American Express, my mom instead decided to move to California to live with her aunt. He stayed in constant touch and eventually convinced her to move back east so they could be together. As romantic as that sounds, their relationship became defined by a constant push and pull.

  We lived in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Plainfield—but literally right down the street from what most people would consider a bad area. Gangs, drugs, and fights at Cedar Brook Park, where I used to go to shoot hoops, were the norm. And I was too young at the time to know any different. All I cared about was minding my own business and finding a basket for myself. I would stay there for hours playing imaginary one-on-one games. My mom and dad had no problem with me going there.

  It was a totally different story when it came to my education. My parents wanted to insulate me from the bad influences that were all too common in the local public schools. So from preschool on, they sent me to private schools. First it was Montessori, followed by Sacred Heart, and then St. Joseph’s to round things out.

  I remember when I was really young, fourth grade or so, there was an announcement over the school PA that they would be holding basketball tryouts. I’d been working on my game—all I could do at that point was shoot the ball with two hands from beside my right ear—and I was so excited that I ran home from the bus stop, threw open the screen door, and started yelling, “Mom! Mom! There’s a shoot-out! There’s a shoot-out!” She immediately grabbed me and pulled me to the ground, saying, “Get down! Get down!” She wanted to shield me from any stray bullets. When I realized what she was doing, I said, “No, Mom—basketball shoot-outs!” The word had a whole different meaning at the school she worked at, a place where you had to pass through a metal detector when entering the building.

  My dad came from a big family in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His mother, Elizabeth Snelling Williams, was a prominent civic activist and leader in the community, working on causes ranging from at-risk youth to proper care for the elderly. She always prioritized education; in the 1940s, she campaigned for African American students to have a full school term each year, rather than having it cut short so the students could go work the harvest. The city of Fort Lauderdale named a street after her—Elizabeth S. Williams Boulevard. In 1984, she was honored at the White House as matriarch of a Great American Family, for putting all ten of her children through college.

  My dad loved sports, and he passed that love on to me. He had his own way of watching a game. He’d be upstairs in his room and you’d hear this loud stomping sound—Boom! Boom!—as he pounded his foot on the floor. Or Boom! Boom! “No! What the hell are you doing?!” as he yelled at the screen in frustration. But then out of nowhere we’d hear him laugh; it was the most infectious laugh in the world. The most random things would crack him up—if a commercial struck him as funny, out came this burst of laughter that always put a smile on your face.

  Because he loved tennis—and was a big fan of Ivan Lendl—I learned how to play the game at a very young age. I also played soccer before I ever took up basketball, because there was a strong Latin influence in the town and that was the sport of choice. By second grade I was playing both of those sports, and I am convinced they helped a great deal once I started basketball, thanks to the footwork from soccer and the hand-eye coordination from tennis.

  Once I was watching a Pete Sampras match with my dad. This was when he was dating the actress Kimberly Williams. They would show her in the stands, and my dad would start telling me how women can mess up your game, how you have to dedicate yourself to your sport if you want to stay focused, and how they have the power to distract you if you let them. I shrugged it off then, but looking back, I have to admit there was one loss in particular, at Florida State, that validated my dad’s theory.

  When my parents threw a party, my mom would cook these great dinners and you’d hear the soaring voices of Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and others singing in the background. Everyone was always just so happy being together and kicking back. I was taught to call my parents’ friends “aunt” and “uncle.” Uncle Allen was my dad’s best friend, and my mother later became friends with his wife, who was Aunt Diane. Uncle Tony and Aunt Chris were the parents of my close friend and “cousin” Jared. My dad’s friends would arrive with a whole bunch of alcohol to go along with the feast. We were one big, racially mixed family having a blast.

  When I was young, my parents would always try to get me to go to sleep by eleven P.M. on Christmas Eve, which was always a challenge, considering how loud things got downstairs as the evening went on.

  One year my dad told me, “You better go upstairs, because Santa Claus is going to call you.” And I’m like (insert Kevin Hart voice) “Oh my God! Oh my God! Santa is going to call me? Great, I’m going to tell him what I want for Christmas!” My dad told me to make a quick list of all the things I wanted. In our house there was one set of stairs near the living room and another by the kitchen. The kitchen stairs were still a little high for me, but in my excitement I took them, slipping and hitting my head on a step.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” I yelled. “I gotta go write to Santa.”

  So I have this huge knot on my head now, and I’m upstairs writing down this list when all of a sudden my dad yells from downstairs.

  “Pick up the phone. Santa’s calling!”

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Ho-ho-ho! Is this Jason?”

  “Yes, this is Jason . . . Is this Santa?”

  “Yes, this is Santa. Now tell me what you want for Christmas.”

  The voice on the other end sounded like the most ghetto version of Santa possible. The way he asked what I wanted sounded like he was sticking me up. I could hear the laughter coming through the phone. I might’ve been young and naive, but I wasn’t stupid.

  “This isn’
t Santa. This is Uncle Allen.”

  “This isn’t Uncle Allen. This is Santa! Now tell me, what do you want for Christmas?”

  Meanwhile, I started to sneak my way down the front staircase. I saw my Uncle Allen on the phone and my dad cracking up in the corner.

  “You all trying to trick me,” I said.

  And my dad was just laughing and laughing. My father’s laugh was one of the greatest gifts of all.

  To understand how my mother fell in love with my dad, how he managed to convince her to move back from California, maybe even why she stayed with him as long as she did, all you have to do is hear him laugh. That isn’t hard to do, because once he starts, you can hear him in every room in the house. Jared, my friend Dre, and I all tried to imitate it, because it’s the kind of laugh that is infectious. He stomps his foot and loses his breath, with these short bursts of “Oh shit,” “Ohhh, ohhh,” “My God” in between. It was one of the most joyous sounds of my childhood.

  But with two strong personalities like my father and my mother under one roof, there were bound to be some clashes. I heard them shouting and arguing more often than I like to remember. My mom can be scattered, like she has a little ADD in her; she’ll start in on something and then get distracted and maybe come back to it or maybe not. My dad always wanted things to be where he left them; if he put a book or a tool someplace, he expected to find it there, even weeks or months later. My mom would clean up and put things where she thought they should go, sometimes forgetting where that was.

  This triggered some nasty fights. I’d hear them yelling, and I wanted to hide and cover my ears. I wished I had a brother or sister, someone to provide perspective or comfort or just to share what I was feeling. That was especially true on those occasions when things got physical.