By JOE SANFILIPPO
Staff Writer
sanfilippo@dailypennsylvanian.com
Anyone with a Brown graduation ring is a step behind Adrian Williams.
The sophomore guard on the men's basketball team already has a championship ring from Super Bowl XXII - actually, his dad does.
"He kind of keeps it stashed away," Williams said. "I think he brings it out for special occasions."
Adrian's father, Doug Williams, was an NFL quarterback for eight seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Washington Redskins.
The elder Williams notched 100 passing touchdowns in 88 professional games, but is perhaps best known for leading the 1988 Redskins to a 42-10 Super Bowl victory over John Elway and the Denver Broncos - the same John Elway who outplayed Brett Favre ten years later in Super Bowl XXXII.
Doug Williams is the only African American quarterback to win the Super Bowl. He was awarded the game's Most Valuable Player award to boot.
And even though the younger Williams - standing at six-foot-one and 180 pounds - is a talented athlete, his path will undoubtedly be much different than his father's; after freshman year of high school, he quit football, turning his focus to the hardwood.
Adrian, too, was a quarterback, but also played on the other side of the ball as a free safety. Yet when the time came to think about college, Adrian was strictly about hoops.
"It's kind of good [my father and I] don't play the same sport because there's not as much pressure as there would be if I played football," Williams said. "But he definitely gives me inspiration to succeed."
At Wheeler High School in Atlanta, Ga., Adrian was an All-State guard with 12.7 points per game as a senior. He had a career-high 35 points in a contest the same year, nailing a county-record 11 three-pointers in the process.
In his freshman year in Providence, R.I., he was only one of six Bears to play all 28 games, averaging 4.6 points per contest. He had a season-high 13 against Harvard and pulled in one Ivy League Player of the Week award.
So far this season, Williams has started all 19 games, tallying 12.1 points per game - good for third on the team.
After his years on the court are over, Williams plans on returning to Atlanta, the hip-hop capital of the world, to begin a career as a music producer.
He spent this past summer working at Coca-Cola, but spent his free time in the studio making music and networking.
His business so far is fairly "low-key."
"I use some cheap programs on the computer, and I have a [piano] keyboard," Williams said. "Right now I'm just working hard to hopefully make a name for myself in the music scene."
Indeed, while Adrian may be best-equipped to drop the beats in the Williams family, his father will always be the one brandishing the best bling.
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