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| Junior Jatavion Williams was recently featured in the Savannah Morning News for his unusual path from student manager to student athlete on the Tigers football team. |
For most of his young life, 20-year-old Jatavion Williams has known what he wants to do,
then figured out how to do it.
When Williams was a child and asked what he wanted
to be when he grew up, he always gave the same answer: a doctor. Only
recently did Williams narrow his focus to orthopedic surgeon after working
summers in his native Macon with his granddad. Leon Simmons is a handyman,
and together they've done backbreaking work painting houses, putting down tile
and other flooring, rebuilding walls, and more.
"I'll hear him talk about how his joints are bothering
him," said Williams, a junior biology major at Savannah State University.
"He was saying he does what he does because he loves it, but at the same
time, I know his age is catching up with him. That made me think, I want to be
able to help people like that so they are able to have mobility and move around
freely. Once you're not able to move anymore, that takes a lot away from a
person."
Williams also knew that he didn't want to finish his
football career in high school. No colleges were interested in him, however. No
athletic scholarship offers, not even status as a preferred walk-on, which
requires no financial commitment from the athletic program.
Read the full story by Nathan Dominitz in the Savannah Morning News.