Before Clem Haskins, Jimmy Williams was the University of Minnesota’s first-ever Black head men’s basketball coach. He succeeded then-coach Jim Dutcher, who resigned in 1986 after an incident in Madison, Wis. that prompted the school president to suspend three Black players accused of sexual assault after a game there.
The charges were later proven unfounded, but the damage was done—the players were dismissed without a hearing, and Dutcher stepped down as a result. This left Williams, then the top assistant in charge, and he finished the season as Gopher interim coach.
Haskins was hired later after the season, and Williams moved on after first being hired by Bill Musselman as one of his two main assistants in 1971. He also coached at Tulsa, Oklahoma State, San Diego State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Memphis, Nebraska, and the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.
Williams died Monday at age 77of severe Parkinson’s disease and other ailments at a care facility in Florida.
His legacy at the U shouldn’t have been overlooked, said Melvin Newbern.
“We all committed early. We all came on our visit at the same time and had a great time,” said Newbern Tuesday night by phone. He recalled how Williams recruited him and his future Gopher teammates, “I just felt that he was straight up in terms of letting me know where I fit in and what he saw in my future coming in becoming a Golden Gopher.”
Newbern, Willie Burton, and Jim Shikenjanski all signed early to play for Williams and then head coach Jim Dutcher. They didn’t however—“He kept his communication open with us” all through the uncertainty period between Williams’ interim stint and Haskins’ hiring, recalled Newbern of Williams.
“As a young kid, we were concerned in terms on who was going to get the next head coach job and how all that was going to play out during that whole ordeal. When they finally named Coach Haskins the head coach, I was comfortable that I would still come in here,” said Newbern.
Williams’ first season at Minnesota was 1973-74, his last was 1985-86. In between, Williams helped coached the likes of Marc Wilson, Jim Petersen, Trent Tucker, Mark Hall, Kevin McHale, Mychal Thompson, Flip Saunders, and Ray Williams (no relations) among so many others. He was on the staff of the 1981-82 Big Ten champions in the pre-conference tournament days. He guided a depleted Gopher squad for the final 11 games of the 1985-86 season, Williams’ interim stretch as head coach.
“The University of Minnesota in my personal opinion just had a coach who put in a lot of time and effort into basketball here over a period of years,” Burton said of Williams Tuesday in a MSR phone interview. “It goes back to [Bill] Musselman to Dutcher. He spent a lot of years with multiple coaches. Coaches like him, they had a lot of impact on the lives of youth in trying to get us to do the right thing.”
Added Newbern, “Coming from Toledo, Ohio, playing for a Black coach, and then having to play for another Black coach—when I heard that Coach Haskins got the job warmed me over of having a chance to play for another Black coach,” he reiterated.
Burton called Williams “a great recruiter, a good person … he was passionate about the Twin Cities. He was very intelligent. That’s one of the things I remember about him. His basketball IQ was really high.”
Sadly, a day or so after his passing, we now highlight the historical contributions that Wiliams made during his 13 seasons at Minnesota.
“I would say he’d done Minnesota proud in terms of getting African Americans, and just players in general, to come to the University of Minnesota,” said Newbern.
He continued, “I know a lot of people know of him just from the coaching aspect and the coaching community. You really can’t go anywhere in the country and mention Jimmy Williams and no one knows of who he is, his name and what he stands for, and what he believed in.
“It was truly an honor for me to be recruited by him, and be able to call him a coach and a friend,” said Newbern proudly. He said he kept in touch with Williams over the years: “When he came to town, he made sure to reach out to me, and I’m sure he reached out to Willie, Shikenjanski and some of the other guys.
“Even though I didn’t get the chance to play for him, I still felt a close connection to him … he was responsible for bringing me here to Minnesota. All the things that I accomplished at the University of Minnesota; I like to think that he had his hand in it. I will always be grateful for that even though I played for Coach Haskins,” stressed Newbern.
Finally, on his legacy as Minnesota’s first ever Black men’s head basketball coach, “I would have to think that because of the short tenure that he had, that’s probably why realistically why they don’t talk about it,” surmised Newbern. “He was the first Black coach and he should be heavily respected for that.
“He will truly be missed,” concluded Newbern. “It was truly an honor for me to be recruited by him, and be able to call him a coach and a friend.”