First-year Greenwood Christian coach Jackson Williams, left, poses with his father, Cougars assistant Jim Williams.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
Jackson Williams was the height of a half-hearted bounce of a basketball the first time he rode the team bus with his dad to a Center Grove boys basketball game.
No one realized it as the 2001 sectional at Columbus North played out, but a tradition was being born.
Fast forward to today.
Jackson and Jim Williams, ages 24 and 62, respectively, are among the reasons Greenwood Christian, a team that lost 82% of its point production of a year ago by way of graduation or transfer, is turning heads with a 15-9 record.
In his formative years, Jackson sat on the Trojans’ bench, quietly absorbing the action transpiring on the court and what was being said during practices and in locker rooms and huddles.
As GCA’s first-year head coach, he’s putting those lessons to good use.
“When Jackson was a little boy, he was on the bench with me and was at every practice,” Jim Williams said. “At the start of this season I would catch myself laughing because he is repeating some of the things he was told when he was younger when you didn’t think he was listening.”
He was.
The Cougars begin postseason play at 6 p.m. tonight at the Class A Indianapolis Lutheran Sectional against winless Providence Cristo Rey.
Jim Williams, whose knowledge of the game has benefited four different coaching regimes of Center Grove boys hoops — Dick Harmening, Bill Zych, Cliff Hawkins and Zach Hahn — is the Cougars’ junior varsity coach.
The Williamses, along with assistants RJ Turner, Craig Harrell and Tom Miner, attempt to positively influence the young men wearing the GCA uniform while also having success on the scoreboard
Turner, a 2017 Ben Davis graduate, took home the Mental Attitude Award his senior season after the Giants defeated Fort Wayne North, 55-52, in the Class 4A state championship game.
Jackson Williams, only six years older than the seniors he coaches, is seen as the program’s unquestioned leader without the lines of authority becoming blurred.
“I don’t feel it’s hard to do because we’ve got great kids,” Jackson Williams said. “Our seniors (Aden Sloan and Matt Teike) trusted our vision for them and for the team. The whole respect factor was something we never had to worry about.”
Jim Williams, a 1978 Center Grove graduate who played golf for the Trojans and later was the school’s longtime girls golf coach, tends to be more animated during games than his son. Jim grew up watching the two-fisted fury of Slick Leonard, Bob Knight and Gene Keady; his son is more from the Brad Stevens era.
Thus, Jackson Williams’ approach is more calculated than reactive, but that’s his personality as much as anything else.
“Standing in the background and just watching, the most gratifying part of it is seeing how hard he works at (coaching),” Jim Williams said. “Jackson has gotten on the kids when he’s had to, but for the most part he’s pretty low-key. His insight into his own players is his greatest asset, and I truly do believe the kids respond to that.”
Watching his son coach, the elder Williams can’t help but flash back to a time when the clipboard was in the other hands.
Once, during a game, Jim Williams was standing courtside, his attention 100% on how the Center Grove players were executing at both ends of the floor, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
It was Jackson, maybe 3 at the time, asking for money so he could purchase something at the concession stand.
Jackson Williams hears the stories, but has what are mostly vague recollections. In typical coach fashion, he’s better at remembering seasons of Center Grove hoops based on the players his father helped coach.
“Just growing up around it, I’ve always known this life,” said Jackson Williams, who works as a history teacher at Shelbyville High School. “Once I got to high school, I realized this is what I wanted to do.”
Jackson prepared for his first head coaching job with two seasons as a GCA assistant and one year each at Center Grove and Shelbyville. Now back with the Cougars, he’s enjoying the opportunity to work side by side with his father.
“This has been a lot of fun. We work well together because the outcome is still the same goal for both of us,” Jackson Williams said. “But we see the game differently, which is good. I think my dad has a lot more experiences he can draw from.
“If something isn’t working, he can tap into that experience and come up with something different. There are definitely times we’ve disagreed on things, but we’re not screaming and yelling at each other.”
Asked if he and his father will continue to remain part of the same coaching staff in the years ahead, Jackson Williams said that’s the plan.
“It wasn’t a one-year deal,” he said. “I think we’re planning on doing this as long as we can.”
