Duquesne: Big man could be big find
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Morakinyo Williams is the fourth 7-footer in Duquesne University history.
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Get something straight: Morakinyo Williams isn't a basketball vagabond.
Even though he attended three high schools and Duquesne is the second college for the 21-year-old sophomore from just outside Birmingham (England, not Alabama), the people closest to him are certain that isn't the correct tag for him.
"I'm not sure that would be accurate," said Pete Davey, a Virginian whose family opened its home to Williams in July 2006 and remains close.
"In a lot of this, he didn't have a choice; forces moved him. He was just pushed or pulled in a direction. A vagabond is someone who moves willingly, of his own accord. And that hasn't always been the case with him."
It surely hasn't.
How Morakinyo Michael Williams -- some call him "Mike" -- arrived at Duquesne and started to take root as the Dukes' center is a story complete with deportation, survival through big-time high school basketball's meat-market culture, two host family situations that ended poorly, a stint at Kentucky that didn't go as planned, a heart procedure and feelings now and again, no matter how hard he tries to fight them off, of homesickness.
"But I feel like everything is starting to be really positive for me right now," said Williams, the fourth 7-footer in Duquesne history and first since Ricky Lopes played for the Dukes from 1992-94. "The last couple of weeks we've lost some close games, but I feel like people here at Duquesne are beginning to see I could have a good future."
It's a future that never would have materialized had he not decided to pick up a basketball and begin playing at 13 -- if for no other reason than his hulking size.
Asked when it first became noticeable that he was larger than his peers, Williams quickly shot back, "Always."
"When I was 12, I was 6 feet 1. By the time I was 13, I was up to 6-6, and at 14, I was all the way up to 6-8 already. I just kept growing."
So did his basketball game -- so much so that he went to a tryout camp in Chester, England, when he was 14 to be seen by the right people.
First Published January 18, 2010 12:00 am
