Born to run

By Dave Fawcett

Published: August 27, 2008

Scott Enlow shook his head in amazement. There was no way this kid, who stood three-foot nothing with knee pads down to his cleats, a football dwarfing his tiny hands and a customized helmet swallowing up his pea-sized head, could be that agile, that fast and that unstoppable. Not at that age.

And yet, the boy’s performance spoke for itself.

Only 4 years old and competing against older players, De’Antwan Williams scored one touchdown and then another and then another until the streak totaled six with all of his runs coming from 60 yards out or more.

Enlow had never heard of Williams before seeing him that day 13 years ago on a Saturday afternoon in September. Enlow just happened
to be in the same place as Williams, preparing his own team for a youth league football game later that day.

But in the middle of warm-ups on a nearby hill at Godwin Middle School, some of Enlow’s players, including former Hylton standout and current Penn State star wide receiver Deon Butler, told their coach to check out the kid piling up the yards down on the field.

Enlow stopped what he was doing and watched Williams go.

“How can a kid that little run like that?” Enlow asked himself.

It’s a question that’s always followed Williams, from his youth league days, to his middle-school days at Fred Lynn and even now to his high school days at Woodbridge where he is a highly-touted senior and rated among the nation’s top 150 prep players.

At 5-foot-8, Williams is not the prototypical-looking tailback, making him an easy target for the uninitiated to underestimate him.

But with his powerful build and sprinter’s speed, Williams usually quiets his skeptics, or in the case of Enlow, wins them over.

Captivated by what he witnessed that September afternoon, Enlow introduced himself to Williams and Williams’ mom Stacey and told them two things.

First, he said he would like to coach Williams some day. And second, he explained why. 

“I think he’s going to be special,” Enlow said.

***

Williams doesn’t see what others see and doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Yes, he’s flattered by the 20-plus scholarship offers he’s received from colleges, many of them from among the nation’s finest football programs.

Yes, he’s got a nickname that’s stuck with him since that first season of youth football when his coach asked him whether he wanted to be called “Rocket” or “Bullet” and he chose the former.

Yes, he’s so enamored of that nickname that he considers Elton John’s classic “Rocket Man” his theme song.

And yes, he understands and accepts his role as his team’s go-to player on offense no matter what challenge awaits him.

But try and convince him that he’s one of the nation’s elite high school running backs and you will get this blank stare. He doesn’t believe he belongs in that category.

In June of 2007, Williams was minding his own business at a 7-on-7 passing tournament at the University of Virginia when Cavalier head football coach Al Groh spotted him.

Groh sat down next to Williams and said the Cavaliers were planning on offering him a scholarship.

Noticing what was going on, the other Woodbridge players got quiet, but Williams was baffled.

“There are like a 1,000 players there and he stopped to talk to me,” Williams said.

Quiet and humble, Williams prefers that others get the credit they deserve, no matter what the contribution.

“He definitely comes back and says good block and thank you,” said Woodbridge fullback Kevin Tyrra, who has been blocking for Williams since the two played Pop Warner football together for the 8-through-10-year-old War Eagles.

Keeping a level head is a lesson Williams’ mother taught him at an early age.

“One of the things I’ve always tried to instill in him is that you have to put the work in to reap the benefits,” Stacey Harvey said.

***
Harvey said Williams was a precocious child when it came to athletics.

Part of that was genetics. Both she and Williams’ father Otis were athletes.

Williams resembles his mother in his build, but gets his natural strength from his dad and his maternal grandfather.

Part of it was desire. If his mom was doing push-ups or sit-ups, Williams followed suit.

And part of it was disposition. He just liked being active without being pushed into it. At age two, he was riding a bike.

He also enjoyed hanging out with the older kids in the neighborhood and playing football where he grew up in Williamstown. Otis Williams noticed this and decided to sign his son up for a youth league in Dumfries.

Williams doesn’t remember much about his first season playing football, but he recalled scoring a lot and loving the contact. He would play other sports, but eventually football became his focus.

And he, in turn, became the focus of the team, which sometimes raised eyebrows.

Williams, who won’t turn 18 until Oct. 31st, was under constant scrutiny. People questioned whether he was older than he said he was. It got so bad that Harvey had to carry her son’s birth certificate to the youth league games in case she was asked to prove her son’s age.

“He had a big X on his back,” Harvey said.

By middle school, Williams was turning heads as well.

In his first game as a sixth grader, Harvey overheard some fathers of some of the team’s other players talking about this little kid who has “a heart of gold.”

“I knew they were talking about De’Antwan,” Harvey said.

Harvey told her son to stay close to the coach so when it was time to go in, he was ready.

With five minutes left and Fred Lynn on the verge of winning, Williams got his chance, except he wasn’t standing where his mother told him to be when the coach came looking for him.

Instead, he was the last one down on the bench. The coach called for him and asked him if wanted to play. Williams said yes and off he went.

“He ran the heck out of the ball,” Harvey said. “There were these big eighth graders and he was carrying them on his back.”

It wasn’t until the end of middle school that Harvey decided it was best to hold Williams back and have him repeat the eighth grade so that
once he arrived at Woodbridge, he would be with kids his own age.

“I thought it would better for him to develop academically so that he wouldn’t be a lost soul out there,” Harvey said.

Williams almost never made it to Woodbridge.

After finishing middle school, Williams considered transferring to DeMatha, a powerhouse private school in Maryland that sends a steady stream of players to the Division I ranks. The Stags had known about Williams since he was 10 and had kept close tabs on him, Enlow said.

But after looking more closely at it, Williams decided to stay put. There was no guarantee he’d play much or at all at DeMatha his freshman year and the commitment would require a daily commute to and from the school.

Of course, there was no guarantee he’d play much at Woodbridge either as a freshman, but that changed during the Vikings’ first practice. Woodbridge head coach Keith King knew about Williams and was high on him from the beginning, but Williams needed to earn his time.
It didn’t take long for that to happen.

“The first day, we did these drills, going from station to station,” King said. “And he was first in everything. He ran the ball harder than anyone we had. So after that one day, I said, ‘We have our tailback.’ ”

Williams was surprised by how easy the transition was from middle school to high school.

“That tripped me up,” Williams said. “Going to high school, where everyone is bigger and stronger, I didn’t think it would be possible.”
Although he is on standby as a defensive back if needed, King prefers Williams only play running back so the Vikings don’t risk losing their biggest offensive weapon to an injury.

Williams is a fearless runner who experiences his share of nicks and bruises. But he’s rarely banged up enough to miss a game.
As a sophomore, he suffered a concussion against Fauquier while attempting a pass. And last season against Loudoun Valley, Williams did not carry the ball after aggravating a nagging ankle injury the week before against Highland Springs.

He wanted to run the ball against Loudoun Valley, but King held him out for precautionary purposes.

“We thought we had a chance at the playoffs and we didn’t want him missing for that,” King said.

Smart move. Williams led the Vikings to their first appearance in the state finals since 1974 and his impact was never more apparent than in the semifinals when he carried a state-record 34 times for 245 yards and five touchdowns in a 42-27 win over Hermitage.

“He never wears down,” King said. “You watch that game and it is the 13th game of the season and you see a defense that is getting tired trying to tackle him.”

With Woodbridge returning a good chunk of last year’s team, Williams has a clear goal in mind this season.

“The one thing new about him is that he wants to win states,” Tyrra said. “He’s fired up.”

Williams doesn’t get too emotional on the field. Although he will engage in some trash talking if provoked by an opponent trying to rattle
him, he prefers to let his play do his talking.

Off the field, he keeps even more to himself. He hangs out with friends, works out and holds a part-time job at a local grocery store.
He also plays video games, but not very well, especially ones involving football.

“As good as he is in football, he is horrible [at video games] and everyone knows it,” Enlow said. “How can you be so good at playing and be on a video game and be that bad?”

Like most things, Williams smiles and shrugs it off.

This day he and Enlow are sitting at the kitchen table in Enlow’s townhouse, looking at college football media guides. At the moment, Williams is thumbing through one from West Virginia, studying the sizes of some of the players.

“Man, they’re big,” Williams says under his breath.

He plans on starting to line up his official college visits by the first part of next month as he narrows his choices down and finds what best suits him.

Williams said his criteria includes how good the program’s facilities are and whether he will get the chance to play as a freshman.

He also needs to keep plugging away at his test scores. Although his marks are improving, Williams has yet to meet eligibility
requirements to play football at a Division I school.

He has a strong support network, though, around him, from friends to family to coaches, who are there when needed to help him out.
But the first push always starts with Williams. And he knows it.

“I’ve never seen him reach that point where he says ‘I can’t’ or ‘I’m done,’ “ Enlow said. “Whenever the situation is the toughest, he tries the hardest. And I think that is a trait built inside of h