GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For nearly three decades, Nola Mae Williams was the protector of a piece of jewelry that should have meant the world to her son, but came to represent frustration and resentment.
John L. Williams was one of the best players on arguably the most talented (some even say the greatest) football team in University of Florida history. The 1984 Gators, in the midst of an ugly NCAA investigation that cost Coach Charley Pell his job three games into the season, bludgeoned the Southeastern Conference (including wins of 24-3 over No. 13 Auburn and 27-0 over No. 8 Georgia) on the way to capturing the first league title in program history. UF, at long last, was conference champion and celebrated as such, only to be stripped of the title by the SEC presidents at the league's annual meetings six months after the season.
John L. Williams (left) and his mother, Nola Mae Williams, in 2011
For the players, the vacated championship was bad enough, but being ostracized by the school and athletic program they suited up for in the ensuing years – all references to the '84 champions, as well as the 1985 co-champions, were wiped from UF record books and removed from the stadium – became a bridge too far in many of their minds. Williams, a magnificent running back and future first-round NFL draft pick, gave his SEC title ring to his mother and even buried it with her upon her passing in 2013.
"I had no use for it because what it meant they took away from us," said Williams, a 1997 inductee into the UF Athletic Hall of Fame. "It meant something to her, but didn't mean anything to me anymore."
Williams, now 59 and retired, is at peace knowing the trinket forever will rest with his mom. Yet maybe this weekend can bring a different kind of peace – for Williams and dozens more Gators, not to mention thousands of longtime fans – when members of that both famous
and infamous 1984 team, at long last, returns to Spurrier/Florida Field to be recognized during Saturday's game between UF (3-3, 1-2) and Kentucky (3-3, 1-3), the team the Gators beat 40 years ago to clinch that short-lived championship.
Arrive early and see Williams rep his cherished teammates and longtime friends as the game's honorary "Mr. Two Bits."
"We'd hear the whistle," Williams said of famed cheerleader George Edmondson Jr., who was a spry 62-year-old running the stadium back in '84. "That's when we knew to look up into the stands."
On Saturday, once again, it will be fans in the stands at Williams and Co., and looking back on the remarkable achievements of that stunning collection of UF icons and superstars: Neal Anderson, Kerwin Bell, Lomas Brown, Lorenzo Hampton, Crawford Ker, Ricky Nattiel, Frankie Neal, Jeff Zimmerson, Alonzo Johnson, Tim Newton, Jarvis Williams, Adrian White, Ray Criswell and Bobby Raymond, to name a few.
Not all will be there. Some have passed on. Some will just plain take a pass on what they feel is a too-little, way-too-late acknowledgment.
Some wounds are just too deep to heal.
John L. Williams wore No. 22 at Florida before another famous UF running back did.
Williams, who shared carries with Anderson and Hampton to give the Gators a trio of future NFL first-rounders in the backfield, was asked if the weekend, which will include a golf function Friday and tailgating Saturday, will be emotional, meaningful or bittersweet?
"Just add all three of those words together and that'll definitely be me," he said.
Williams, who at Palatka High was one of the greatest running backs in state history, retired from the NFL after the 1995 season and returned to his hometown to run a bar and funeral home in 1997. Despite living just 50 miles away, he's never been back to a UF football practice and only attended two games; one against Alabama in 2010 when he sat in the stands, the other against Florida State in 2017 when then-interim UF coach Randy Shannon, who as a player at Miami faced Williams and those '84 Gators, invited him to sit in the head coach's suite.
"It took a Hurricane to ask me back," Williams said.
Until now.
This invite comes courtesy of the University Athletic Association. The parties involved (as well as the devoted old-guard fans) can debate and complain about what went wrong or what lines of communication broke down over the last 40 years, or they can look at this UAA invitation as an olive branch that (maybe) can lead to something more. Perhaps further recognition of some kind down the line.
During his 10 NFL seasons (eight in Seattle), John L. Williams was a multi-purpose back and two-time Pro Bowl selection who combined for 9,992 yards and 37 touchdowns rushing and receiving.
"It's the beginning of mending a fence," said Williams, who was taken 15th overall in the 1986 draft by Seattle, where he was a two-time Pro-Bowler and played 10 NFL seasons, with his final game coming as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super XXX. "I think you're going to be surprised how many guys are actually coming back. It'll be great to see so many faces I haven't seen in years."
And maybe greater that a new generation (several generations, actually) see some faces, hear some stories and watch some highlights on the giant video screen of a championship team forgotten.
Even now, all these years later, Williams has trouble talking about it.
"I'm one of those guys who is not very well spoken when it comes down to it ... especially about this," he said. "Until I get excited and worked up, that is, which was how I was on the football field."
It's been a long time (too long) in coming, but the field where Williams and the '84 Gators were once cheered and revered beckons again.
Welcome home, gentlemen.
