The Hoop Heads podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

I understand what the game of basketball can do for you.

I understand firsthand what basketball can take you away from.

So man, it's a beautiful game.

If you're good to the game, man, the game will be good to you.

Nick Williams is heading into his first season as a men's basketball assistant coach at McNeese State University.

Williams spent the previous three seasons as an assistant at the University of Southern Mississippi from 2022 to 2025 before joining the staff at Southern Miss.

He worked for three seasons at Northwest Mississippi Community College.

Prior to Northwest, Williams spent the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons as a graduate assistant at Ole Miss under head coaches Andy Kennedy and Kermit Davis.

Williams began his coaching career while playing two seasons professionally overseas in Brazil and Canada and coaching high school basketball in his Hometown of Mobile, Alabama at Matty T.

Blunt and LaFleur High Schools.

A former standout shooting guard, Williams played his college ball at Indiana from 2008 to 2009 before closing out his final three seasons at Ole Miss.

From 2010 to 2013, Williams averaged 8.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, led Indiana in free throw percentage and 29 starts as a freshman.

He'd go on to help the Rebels to 70 combined wins, three straight post season bursts, and as a senior he was instrumental in helping Ole Miss reach the NCAA Tournament, claim an SEC Tournament title and win the most games in a single season in school history.

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Grab pen and paper before you listen to this quick hitting episode with Nick Williams, men's basketball assistant coach at McNee State University.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkel this morning, but I am pleased to be joined by Nick Williams, men's basketball assistant coach at McNeese State.

Nick, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod.

Mike, man, thanks for having me.

Thanks for having me, brother.

Absolutely excited to have you on looking forward to diving into your career in basketball.

Let's start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game, how you fell in love with it.

Man, actually I was kind of a late bloomer.

I didn't start playing basketball until, you know, seventh grade.

So I'm from Mobile, Alabama.

So football, baseball is, is, is your.

Is your usually your.

The sports you play?

So I didn't get it.

Like I said, I didn't get into basketball until later.

I was about maybe 11, 12 years old.

So.

Nah, man, it was, it was.

I don't know how I fell in love with it, but it just happened.

And then just one day I just started to work at it and, you know, eventually got better and, you know, kind of the rest is kind of history.

What did that work at it look like for you in terms of are you playing pickup?

Are you going out and working by yourself?

Are you working with a trainer?

What's your process for getting better?

Oh, no, man, I'm an old cat.

So we ain't, we, we ain't really had trainers back in the day.

So it was just outside, man, blacktop playing at the park.

You know, got a, got a hoot for Christmas one year and you know, it kind of went from there.

Like, you know, like I said, I'm from Mobile, so it's very humid in the summer, so we deal with a lot of hurricanes.

So a lot of times, you know, my hoop got blew over and, you know, the rim was bent kind of like, you know what I'm saying?

Kind of like at the fair, you feel me?

So that's kind of How I perfected my jump shot shooting on a bent rim in the driveway.

So just a lot of, just a lot of hooping, man.

A lot of games are one on one.

21.

Just a bunch of just pickup basketball.

When you tell the guys you coach now, the way that you grew up in the game and playing outdoors and hearing you even say, we played 21, now, you tell kids, hey, man, let's play some 21.

And they look at you like you got four heads.

They have no idea what that game.

They have no idea what that game even is, you know, And I mean, I'm like, you.

Like, I grew up on the playground and just playing and pick up and.

Driving around trying to find games.

And you know, as you well know, that that culture doesn't exist necessarily in the same way.

Tell me a little bit about the transition for you from playing to coaching.

Obviously, you have a really good college career.

Play a season at Indiana, play three seasons at Ole Miss, go overseas and have some experiences there.

But talk a little bit about just your thought process in terms of getting to coaching as a profession.

Was that something that you were always thinking about while you were playing, or was that something that once you got done and you looked around, you're like, man, I gotta figure out a way.

To stay in the game.

I don't know if either one of those paths resonates with you.

Crazy thing about it, man, I did not want to coach, like playing with some of the guys I played with.

I was like, there's no way.

There's no way I'm getting into coaching.

Cause there's.

I can't, I can't, dawg.

Like, and I was, you know, I was team captain at Ole Miss two to three years I was there.

So basically I was coaching then.

And that was like, no, there's no way.

But, you know, as I, you know, kind of, you know, finished my career plan, you know, in college, and I went overseas for a couple years, you know, body started to break down and, you know, I'm looking around, I'm like, man, so what am I going to do now?

Am I going to be working these odd jobs or, you know, doing manual labor?

Nothing against that, but you're like, what do I want to do with my life?

Um, so, you know, I took a year off trying to find my way.

Basketball didn't work out, dealt with some injuries, so I had to figure out what I was gonna do.

Good thing.

One of the assistant coaches or one of my assistant coaches when I was in high school, was A head coach in my hometown.

Moved back to my hometown, started volunteering, started working guys out, kind of like, okay, good at this.

You know what I'm saying?

So kind of started, you know, got on his staff and decided, hey, look, man, I feel like, you know, I'm pretty good at this.

I can, you know, I can make a living.

Let's go back to grad school.

So I went to grad school.

My head coach at Ole Miss was still at Ole Miss when I was.

When I wanted to go back to grad school.

So I went back to grad school for two years.

Did that got, you know, started, you know, building, building myself up as becoming a young coach and all that type of stuff.

Learned a lot of great lessons that went into being a junior college coach for three years.

Um, and then, you know, like I said, went to Southern Mitch for three years and now I'm at McNeese.

So, yeah, I kind of like fell into it, man.

I kind of fell into it.

Didn't really understand what I was getting into.

Didn't have a clue as to what I was doing.

But, man, you know, people, you know, couple mentors of mine just told me, like, man, you got a gift.

You got a gift at, you know, being able to talk to these kids, being able to help them.

And you know, as a player, man, I wasn't the most athletic or nothing like that.

What, you know, I feel like made me who I was was my intellect, my skill.

And you get that through hard work and studying.

You don't.

You know, it's some guys out there that just roll out of bed and just are freaks and they just got God gift of being able to handle it and shoot it.

Me, I had to work for mine.

So I feel like that's why teaching and being around the game and helping guys, I feel like came so natural to me because the only way I was gon to be successful as a basketball player was I had to work and I had to study.

So being like that, being in my mind and that just being ingrained in me, like, I just got so much on the inside of me that I, you know, I just gotta get out.

And it's, you know, basketball was the.

Was the path that I took.

So when you get back into coaching at the college level and you come back and you're working in the program where you played, and as you said, you're kind of looking at it going, man, there's a lot of things that I didn't realize went on behind the.

Scenes with coaching what was the most.

Surprising part when you got into the program as a graduate assistant?

What, what surprised you about the coaching profession?

That when you were a player, you didn't really realize, man, the biggest thing.

Like people just think, man, all y' all get to do is coach basketball.

All y' all just sit up and like when I tell you that's the least amount of, like, that's the least amount of like, effort and time, like where our time is spent, like our time is spent in so many other areas, man.

I wonder if gu.

He's not in trouble.

Did he do his work?

Is he eating right?

Is he getting sleep?

Like, basketball is the easy part.

Like basketball, like having, like at least when we're at practice, you know, they're all there, you got your eyes on em, all that type of stuff.

That's the easy part.

It's like raising kids, man.

When they're babies, you think about how tough it is.

But then when they grow up, you're like, dang, man, I wish they were babies again.

Like, I can't keep.

You know what I'm saying?

So like having them on the court and in practice is, you know, the easy part, man.

So yeah, man, when I got back, when I got really into coaching to college, like, you just realize that there's so much other stuff that goes on outside of the court, man.

Like I tell people all the time, this is not an easy job, man.

I tell you that.

Yeah, there is a perception right, when you're playing that, you know, the coaches roll into practice at, you know, if your Practice is at 3, they're rolling into 230 and get the balls out and then they're going home at 6:30.

I know when I was a player that was definitely my perception of kind of what it looked like.

And I know sometimes I'd see him in the meeting and you know, in the, in the office between classes, whatever, and you know, you just don't have, you don't really have a perception of.

Of what really goes on when you're, you know, when you're playing, what's your.

Favorite part on court wise, what do you love to do?

What, what, what, what gets you energized?

When you're out on the floor with guys, what do you like?

What do you like to teach?

What's your favorite part of being on.

The floor with them?

I'm at skip development, number one.

I just love to see the growth, man.

I love to see.

I'm a guy that patient, man.

I had to learn a lot of patience in this profession and just fell in love with just being patient, man.

And I just love to see the growth from the start of the summer when guys get there to the end of the season or just the beginning of the preseason, just to see how much.

How much progress guys have made in the game.

Leadership, the leadership aspect of it, you know, holding guys accountable, just being able to rub off on these guys.

I think that's the.

That's the thing that I cherish the most.

And you know what kind of gets me going?

Practice, man, is just like competition dog.

Being competing, man, defense, man.

Like seeing guys guard, you know, seeing guys talk to each other, man, and like, like, I love, like, confrontation on the court, not like fighting or nothing like that, but I love this.

I love toughness and, you know, you're not scoring on me or I'm about to go get a bucket and there's nothing you can do about it.

Like, I love that, like, back and forth camaraderie and competition that, you know, you have.

You can only get in sports, you know what I'm saying?

So that's what gets me going every morning.

That's what gets me, you know, ready.

Just, you know, when I lay my head down and I just thinking about the next day of just, you know, man, we get to go at it tomorrow.

You know what I'm saying?

So, yeah, man.

Competition, dog.

Competition, man.

And just bumping every day.

What's the best way in your mind when you think about, like, designing a practice or the types of drills or things that you like to do in practice, what's the key to making sure that your team is competitive with one another and yet still locked in together with the kind of camaraderie that you got to have in order to put together a team that competes together on the floor?

So obviously they got to get after each other in practice in order to improve and get better and create that.

But then you also need everybody still together when it comes time for the game.

So what's your.

What's your thought on how do you.

How do you do that?

What does that look like?

I think number one.

I think number one, you just gotta start with every.

Everything being a competition, whether every drill being a competition, every sprint being a competition.

And the only way that can be a standard is you gotta have.

I don't necessarily say, well, you gotta have consequences for not winning.

You know, you gotta have repercussions for not doing your best.

And the only way you're gonna be able to reach that mark or Push yourself is, hey, dawg, if you don't win or if you don't reach this threshold, then there's something behind that.

And I think that's number one when you setting the standard, just letting guys know that there's a consequence to not being the best.

And then number two, I think the mark of, you know, being able to have competition but also have camaraderie and good teamwork.

And, you know what I'm saying, stuff like that is just having a great head coach, having a great coaching staff that, you know, I'm saying sets the tone.

Like, hey, we're going to get after it.

But look, when it's time for us to, you know, come together and do those type of things, we got to be together.

And I think that's a direct reflection of your head coach and Coach Armstrong is that he's a guy who's super intellectual, has no problem with explaining himself.

And I don't mean you just gotta be a.

A hole and try to, you know, show up to coach or just, you know, need an answer for everything.

That's not that.

But he's somebody that he has no problem with.

Hey, dog, you gotta answer.

I mean, you got a question asked, I have no problem with answering it on the court or you coming up and let's talk and stuff like that, or explaining myself.

So I think that starts with your head coach, man, being able to set the tone competitively, but also set the tone as far as, you know, we're going to be a team, and we're going the only way we'll be able to reach our goal.

We got to do it together.

All right, build on that answer in terms of what attracted you to the job at McNeese and then here in the first, whatever, 90 days that you've been there, how's it going?

What's the role?

Just how's it been unique to some of your other spots?

What attracted me, obviously, was, you know, like I said, Coach Armstrong, he was assistant coach at Ole Miss when I played.

Me and him, you know, built a good bond.

You know how it is, man.

Players are more connected to the assistant coaches, especially at this level.

You know, I heard something back in the day that said, you know, assistants coach the players while the head coach coaches the team.

And I firmly believe that, like, I had a really, really good, you know, relationship, mentor, mentee, relationship with Coach Armstrong, and we've definitely stayed in touch and connected, built our relationship over the years.

We've had.

We've got a, you know, 15 year relationship now.

And as always, I've leaned on him.

You know, in the toughest times.

He's somebody that I can always call.

And that makes recruiting so much easier because I'm just not.

I'm not, you know, when I speak to these kids about the type of person and coach he is, it's coming from experience.

It's nothing that is not cookie cutter.

It's nothing that I just had to make up in my mind.

These are real life experiences that I get to.

That I get to speak from.

So it's so easy to be able to talk to parents and.

And kids and all and coaches about him because I'm speaking from a place of, you know, when I was at my lowest point, when I wasn't playing anymore, when I had deaths in the family, when people were sick and when I didn't have any money and when I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, you know, I was able to call him and just say, man, hey, what do I do?

Like, what can you tell me?

How can you help me?

Like, or.

You're just somebody that just listened to me, man, and, you know, was there for me in the toughest time when my mom got sick or, you know, when people left me and stuff like that.

So in that transition now to being an assistant coach here under him, you know, whether that's day to day, whether that's, you know, operations stuff or, you know, going out and meeting people in the community or just recruiting, you know, working guys out, it makes it so much easier because he's built an atmosphere to where you can be yourself, man.

He's not standing over you, but he expects you to do your job.

And it makes it so much easier to come in and give your all each and every day.

For a guy who, you know is gonna have your back, who's not gonna berate you, he's gonna hold you accountable, but he's not one of those guys who gonna curse you out and try to embarrass you and stuff like that.

So, man, it just makes it, you know, everything so much sweeter because, you know, you're working for a guy who genuinely cares about you.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, final question before I gotta wrap it up.

When you think about the next year or two, and obviously you're in a new position, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then the second part of the question is, when you think about what you get to do every day, based on our conversation, right, you didn't know for your Entire life, you weren't one of those kids that was drawing up plays on a Napkin at age 8, you know, thinking, hey, someday I'm going to be a coach.

So what brings you the most joy about coaching?

So your biggest challenge and then your.

Biggest joy, biggest challenge, man, is complacency, I think, you know, just being able to get up every day and just try to be better than you were the previous day.

It gets hard, man.

It gets hard, man.

Your body starts to hurt, especially when you get older, you know, and, you know, challenges of winning and losing each and every day.

But, man, that love for it, that love for it makes it, you know, makes it makes it easier to get up.

And I think that kind of leads into my other answer.

Like, just seeing these young men grow, just seeing these young men grow, man, especially from some of the backgrounds that they come from, similar to mine.

You know, grew up single parent, household, kind of village.

Raised me with my aunts and my grandmother.

So I understand it, man.

I think that's what drew me, you know, closer to it because I understand what the game of basketball can do for you.

I understand, you know, firsthand what basketball can take you away from, man.

It's a beautiful game.

And, man, if you're good to the game, man, the game will be good to you.

That is really well said.

I could not echo that anymore.

I feel like everything that I have in my life somehow traces back to basketball.

I mean, there's no question about that.

Before we get out, Nick, I want to give you a chance.

Share how people can connect with you.

Email, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Oh, man.

Anybody, man, want to reach out to me?

You can reach out to me on Twitter, man, @nickwilliams.

N I C K WMS 20 underscore.

You'll see me pop right up, man.

And anytime, anybody have questions, you can reach out whenever.

You know, I'll try my best to get back with you.

Perfect.

Nick, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule this morning to jump on and join us.

Really appreciate it.

To everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.

Sam.