Bert Williams: Hall of Fame coach, dad to two, father figure to hundreds, loses fight with cancer
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
It was late May, and Bert Williams was amid family and friends, and some pretty hefty names in the annals of Georgia sports.
Williams was a year removed from walking out of Emory Winship Cancer Center after treatment for mantle cell lymphoma, which was in remission, and was honored with a humanitarian award by the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in its induction ceremony at the Macon City Auditorium.
The COVID-19 pandemic erased the 2020 junior college football season, so GMC’s program was inactive while Williams continued to battle the cancer. Still, he officially retired in late October.
And on that May evening, Williams was preparing to adjust to his first fall not on a sideline in a long, long time.
“Right now, I’ve got a tougher game to prepare for and fight through right now,” he said. “There’s always some steps back in the process with a bone marrow transplant.
“All in all, it’s been going well.”
Williams in recent weeks had taken to Twitter to comment on the name-image-likeness scenario in college sports, and was feisty, while also offering consolation to some folks who were ill, and continuing to promote GMC.
Then, on July 6: “Who are you making a positive difference for today?”
The man who made a positive difference to a few thousand football players, and countless families of players and coaches as well as fans for decades lost his battle Monday morning.
From the start of Williams’ battle, the family has maintained a Caring Bridge.com journal. As per recent posts from Williams’ wife Cathy, he had been at Emory since late June for more than a month and had already fought infections and a variety of complications, including a weakening immune system.
“It seems as soon as we get one infection handled and start the discharge process another one shows up just in time to delay our progress,” Cathy wrote on July 30.
And on Monday morning: “After my last post, Bert has had a turn in the wrong direction. Friday he was admitted to ICU with a rare bacterial infection that is causing heart and liver problems. Please pray for healing.”
He is also survived by sons Parker and Zach, and his parents. Parker is an offensive line coach for his dad’s old team, now run by former longtime assistant Rob Manchester.
Williams was his normal self that night at the Auditorium, although there was much less of him than those who knew him were used to. He had joked a year earlier about being down to his high school playing weight.
“Dude, I’m down to my middle-school playing weight,” he laughed in May. “I’ve gotten down to 160, believe it or not. 160 was sixth, seventh grade maybe.”
And he was happy to make the ceremony for something he never expected.
“To be able to get that call and to be able to be here tonight is just fantastic,” he said. “Having my family here and some of my coaches, it was a great evening.”
He said he had been approached with assorted offers, but said he was nowhere near strong enough to think about much except continuing the process of getting over the cancer.
Bert and Cathy Williams celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary on July 16.
Photo: Cathy Williams/Facebook
“I feel good,” he said. “It’s just a matter of having the stamina to get through, not just a full day, but months of full days.”
A GMC football season without Williams somewhere nearby will be an adjustment for the Bulldogs community in Milledgeville, where Williams spent nearly two dozen years coaching, first as an assistant, then as head coach and athletics director.
“Words can’t express what Bert Williams means to our GMC family,” said Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, USA (Ret.), GMC’s president, in a release. “Bert’s leadership and impact have been felt by so many over the years. Coach Williams provided hope and opportunity every student-athlete he encountered, and his love and commitment to GMC was felt by all. He leaves behind a great legacy at Georgia Military College, and it’s one that we will always honor and remember.”
The Augusta native started at GMC in 1997 as offensive coordinator, and then took over in 2000. He went 156-58, took GMC to 10 bowl games, and won the national junior college championship in 2001. GMC finished as national runner-up in 2002 and 2013, two of the years Williams earned national coach of the year honors. He became the first active coach inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Hall of Fame, in 2010, later joining the NJCAA Coaches Hall of Fame.
Williams was renown for taking players who had some level of discipline issues that interrupted a Division I career and re-directing their focus. Major colleges knew that if they sent a somewhat troubled player to GMC, that player would get a chance to right their personal ship because of Williams and his staff.
As athletics director, he helped the department explode to one that now sponsors nine sports, many with national success.
Manchester has been part of that.
“Bert and I have had a friendship going on 19 years and losing him is like losing a family member,” said Manchester in a release by the school. “My two daughters called him Uncle Bert so it’s really tough to lose him personally, but also professionally. Bert was a great mentor to me, and he really made this GMC Athletics program what it is today.”
There is no doubt some comfort for the huge extended Williams family in that his perhaps underrated career was publicly honored on a major Georgia sports stage at the Hall of Fame ceremony and receiving the J.B Hawkins Humanitarian Award.
“Making a difference in the lives of the student-athletes, you know, has always been something that was, I think, No. 1 on my list,” he said. “When you get an award for doing what you love …”