Sherman Williams was an All-SEC running back who helped Alabama win a national championship, and the Cowboys chose him in the second round of the 1995 NFL draft. But things didn’t go according to plan from there.
Williams was a disappointment in the NFL, never gaining even 500 yards in a season, and after the Cowboys cut him he was convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and passing counterfeit currency, and he spent 14 years in prison. But after Williams was released in 2014, he went back to Alabama, and this weekend he got his degree.
“My message to the kids is always work hard, hard work pays off, and anything you set your mind to do you can do it,” Williams told the Tuscaloosa News. “Have passion at it, work hard at it, have the discipline and determination and it will come through for you.”
Williams said returning to college after a long stint in prison was a shock, with the campus looking very different than it was in the 1990s, and with today’s students using technology that is foreign to him. But he also said he thinks he still has something value to contribute, including warning younger people not to make the same mistakes he made.