Basketball, Track
Favorite athlete: Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
Favorite team: Golden State Warriors
Favorite memory competing in sports: Making great passes and moves to hear the crowd ‘Ahhh’
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: The most embarrassing thing that happened to me was yelling at my team that we were going one direction when we were really going the opposite way.
Music on iPod: Rap, R&B, Pop, Country
Future plans: Major in Occupational Therapy and eventually have a job in that field.
Words to live by: “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
One goal before turning 30: Have a job and be living in Florida.
One thing people don’t know about me: I am originally from Akron, Ohio.
By Mary Jane Souder
Alynna Williams has spent a lifetime listening to people tell her she was “too short” or “too small.”
The Plymouth Whitemarsh senior’s response to those trying to place limitations on her was immediate – she went out and proved them wrong.
“I love when people tell me, ‘You’re too short’ or ‘You can’t do this,’” Williams said. “It just creates more of a drive for me to prove them wrong. It makes me work harder. I’d rather they say that to me. It just encourages me more.”
The 5-1 dynamo might be the smallest player on the basketball court, but don’t be fooled.
“What Alynna lacks in size she more than makes up for in quickness,” PW coach Daniel Dougherty said. “She has an incredibly quick first step.
“The other part is when you are a little bit shorter, you have to be able to extend your range, and she has tremendous range on her three-point shot, so she can draw you out to make you come out and play her. If you don’t, she can shoot a three over top of you. If you do come out to play her, she has the speed and the moves to go past you.”
Announced very generously at 5-5 at PW’s home games, Williams certainly had the last laugh on those who suggested she was too short to invest her time and energy in basketball when she accepted a five-year full scholarship to play the sport at Philadelphia University.
Williams credits her success to a simple philosophy she learned from her father, Wallace Williams.
“My dad always told me – you’ve got to do what other people are not willing to do,” she said. “I didn’t really understand that at a young age, but I just knew that my brother was up every morning before I woke up. He was at the gym for hours, came back and watched YouTube videos, and the next day he did it over again.”
Her brother – Michael Brown, who is six years her senior – reaped the benefits for his tireless efforts by earning a football scholarship to Saint Francis.
“He was a great, great player, and he made me fall in love with the game,” Williams said. “I was waiting for my day to come. I was like, ‘Dad, I want to do this.’ He said, ‘Are you sure?’
“When he first asked me, I was like, ‘Yeah, what is the big deal? I’m playing basketball.’ Then it hit me when I was up every morning at six or seven and some days at five before school – just doing the extra work. It paid off, it paid off completely.”
Working hard is nothing new to Williams, who has been making daily trips to the gym since she was in seventh grade.
“Some days I wouldn’t feel like getting up, and my dad would knock on my door and say, ‘Come on, you’ve got to get up,’” she said. “Sometimes I did it before school – it might have been a really busy week, and just for an hour, I would go in and get shots up and work on ball handling and come home. Most of the time I would come home from school, wait for my dad to get home and then go.”
Williams’ possesses a work ethic that can’t be taught, and it has served her well. The summer after her sophomore year, coaches from Philly U – at the request of PW assistant TJ DeLucia, who is friends with a PU assistant coach – came to watch her play. They liked what the saw but had several suggestions.
“They pointed out three things I needed to work on: driving to my left, going north and south - which is just attacking the basket, and just shooting more,” Williams said. “I told myself I would work on those three things so when they came to the next game they would see improvement.”
Williams’ improvement was apparent, and when she made a visit to Philly U the following winter after the coaches had seen her play in a high school game, the then PW junior received the offer of a full scholarship. She accepted.
“It was honestly unreal,” Williams said. “I remember it like it was yesterday.
“Driving home, I just kept asking my parents – did that just happen? Is this real? They were just so happy for me. I just couldn’t believe it.”
It’s been an interesting journey for Williams, who also played soccer and softball and competed in track with the Conshohocken Electric Force.
“My brother played basketball, so I’ve always been in the gym, traveling everywhere with basketball,” she said. “It’s always been a part of my life.
“When I finally got to the age to pick up a ball, I started right away.”
She began playing community basketball with the local Plymouth Junior ABA Association.
“I loved the competitiveness it brings,” she said.
Williams also got a taste of football with the Conshohocken Bears.
“I played flag football for two years and then played 55 pound, which is tackle, for two years, and then my mom made me quit,” she said. “My mom was scared of me getting hurt more than anything.
“I was upset – I cried. Football is my favorite sport. If she didn’t tell me to quit, I’d still be playing.”
By middle school, basketball became the focal point of Williams’ life, and she began playing for an AAU team when she was in eighth grade but walked away from the highly competitive circuit after her sophomore year.
“I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to play basketball,” she said. “Because of AAU, it was constantly – I woke up basketball, I went to sleep basketball.
“It was just so much that it took me out. After I took a break from AAU, it just brought back the love for me. During summer league, that’s when it really clicked – ‘Wow, I want to do this in college.’”
Williams had a prolific career at PW. Despite missing all except four games of her freshman year because of an injury, she closed out her career with 936 points, 10th all-time in program history.
“When you look at the nine players ahead of her, they all played during a time when there was 24 games a season, and all nine were four-year players,” Dougherty said. “She pretty much got 936 points in three seasons plus one playoff game.”
The senior standout connected on 50 three-pointers this year, third best single season all-time at PW. She averaged 16.8 points a game, the fifth best average ever, but scoring points is just a part of her game. Williams also had over 250 career rebounds and more than 150 assists and more than 150 steals in her career.
“She’s been the leader not only in points but has been a leader on the team for the past three years,” said Dougherty. “This was the first time since 1993-97 that PW girls’ basketball has had three straight seasons of .500 or better.
“Alynna has been at the front of that success and been a leader on those teams. This year she was not only the leader on the floor, but she became a leader in the locker room. We had an incredibly young, inexperienced team. Expectations at the beginning of the season were that if we could come close to going .500 that would be a positive season.”
The Colonials were 12-10, finished third in the SOL American Conference and just missed out on a district berth.
“She did a tremendous job working with the young players, showing them a work ethic and how to practice,” Dougherty said. “When she was battling injuries here and there throughout the season, there was a tremendous drop off in practice until she got back.
“The players get tired of hearing myself or one of my assistants say, ‘Where’s the energy today? Where’s the intensity?’ If one of your players says that, it goes a lot further. One of the biggest things we saw this year was her ability to apply that leadership role in practice.”
A role model to the younger players, Williams was the engine that drove the young Colonials.
“She is the kind of player you wish you had more of, not only skills but that coach-ability concept, and she’s just an all-around good kid,” Dougherty said. “She’s one of those kids that always says, ‘Thank you, coach.’ She really appreciates everything the coaches do for her, and she’s one of those kids that would ask for extra practice time.”
Williams also was the first to help organize off-the-court activities.
An honor roll student, she plans to major in occupational therapy.
“I love science – I’m the biggest science nerd you’ll ever meet,” she said. “I love working with kids, I love working with people and making people’s days better. This felt like a perfect fit for me.”
This spring, Williams is competing for the PW track and field team in the 400, the 800, the 4x400 relay and the 4x800 relay.
“I get crazy adrenaline before each race – it’s so exciting,” she said. “That’s what made me fall in love with track.”
But it’s basketball that is her first love, and the opportunity to play at Division 2 powerhouse Philly U is a dream come true for Williams.
“Trust me, I think about it every day, and I couldn’t be more thankful and grateful,” she said.
