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Provo • Throughout his quest to break BYU's career rushing record, which will likely happen on Friday against Mississippi State, Jamaal Williams has credited coaches, offensive linemen, quarterbacks, receivers, fellow running backs, his sister and even opposing players.
Williams is famous for his epic and long-running shout-outs, along with dozens of other actions such as his pregame dancing and playing catch with fans in the stands that have made him one of the most popular athletes in school history. The 21-year-old senior reserves his biggest appreciation, however, for his biggest fan and supporter: His mother.
"She's the real hero in all of this," he said.
A single mother to Jamaal and younger sister Jaela, a sprinter on UNLV's track team, Nicolle Williams has never missed one of her son's BYU football games, home or away, and even attended a couple of games last year after Jamaal withdrew from school for personal reasons and skipped the 2015 season. She missed one of his high school games, but only because a flight back from a work trip was delayed.
A Riverside (Calif.) County sheriff's deputy, Nicolle figures she has made more than 50 flights to Provo since Jamaal signed with BYU in 2012 as a 17-year-old freshman from Summit High in Fontana, Calif.
"I am pretty much programmed now to be there," she said. "I know that highway from Salt Lake City to Provo pretty well."
Active on Twitter as ByuMomma (@uclagrad90), Nicolle is well-known to thousands of BYU fans, many of whom stop by on game days for a picture with the former UCLA hurdler and sprinter known as Nicolle Thompson when she was a college star in her own right before giving professional track a try in the early 1990s.
"Everyone knows and loves Jamaal's mom," quarterback Taysom Hill said. "She's a good friend. Every time I see her, I go give her a big hug. … It is great that she's around as much as she is."
Help from father figures
Jamaal Williams lights up when asked about his mother, but he is reluctant to talk about his father, Larry, whom he says is not a big part of his life. They haven't spoken in years, Williams said.
"I mean, he just messages me, saying 'good job on everything.' So that's pretty much it," Williams said. "It is what it is. It is life. So I just deal with it."
Williams quickly points out he had "a whole bunch of other father figures" in his life, from relatives to teachers and coaches who taught him to be "well-mannered and respectful to elders, things like that."
If nothing else, Nicolle taught her son to never give up, which is why Jamaal was so adamant when he withdrew from BYU in July of 2015, after a devastating knee injury cut short his junior season in 2014, that he would return in 2016 and be better than ever.
Promise delivered. After the best three-game stretch ever for a running back at BYU — 169 yards against West Virginia, a school-record 286 yards against Toledo and 163 yards against Michigan State — Williams ranks second in the country in rushing yards (866) and rushing touchdowns (10) and is starting to find his way onto some Heisman Trophy candidate lists. He needs 64 yards to break Harvey Unga's school record of 3,455 yards, set from 2006 to 2009.
Unga, now a graduate assistant at BYU, says he's known this day was coming.
"For someone like him to come here, do the things he's done, accomplish the things he's done and go through the things that he has gone through, and then be able to set the record, there is no other kid I would rather have break the record than him," Unga said. "I love the kid to death."
Offensive coordinator Ty Detmer, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1990, five years before Williams was born, said the running back deserves to be called one of the top players ever at BYU.
"He is right at the top," Detmer said. "His yards show that. He is explosive, strong and quick. He has speed to break away when he does get out there. And he is one of the best to ever play here."
Back, better than ever
Nicolle wants no credit for her son's return to BYU after taking 2015 off.
"It wasn't any urging on my part," she said. "I was just part of the support system. We have a checklist. One was a degree. One was to come back and finish what he started. That is something that is a family value. We never quit. If we start something, we are going to finish it. If we do something, we are going to do it to the best of our ability. Pretty much, it was all on him."
Jamaal says when he ran into some personal issues at BYU and left school last year, he always had his mother's example to fall back on and get his head right. A native of St. Louis, Nicolle raised her children hundreds of miles away from her family, so she "adopted" some family in Southern California, as she's also done in Provo.
"I went through the [police] academy as a single parent, so during the week, Jamaal and Jaela would stay with their teachers from the Christian school they attended while I was in the academy, and on weekends I would come pick them up," Nicolle said. "We consider them family."
While Nicolle worked graveyard shifts or overtime shifts to provide for her children, one of Jamaal's football coaches would pick the siblings up and make sure they got to football or track practice. Some summers, Jamaal and Jaela would live with their grandparents in St. Louis, or the grandparents would come live with them in California.
"They grew up really fast," Nicolle said. "But they have been really good kids. They never gave me any problems or anything. I was really blessed with that."
Two words that Jamaal and Nicolle use a lot: grateful and blessed.
Three words that Jamaal says he doesn't think about: school rushing record.
"Still just want to win games, pretty much," he said this week. "But it is all right. Getting to the record is cool. I like it, but it is not my first priority. I still just want us to have a winning season. That's pretty much it."
Twitter: @drewjay —
NCAA 2016 rushing yardage leaders
Player Games Att Yds TDs
Donnel Pumphrey, San Diego St. 5 129 891 9
Jamaal Williams, BYU 6 139 866 10
Dalvin Cook, Florida St. 6 134 785 7
Aaron Jones, UTEP 6 104 733 7
James Butler, Nevada 6 138 728 5
BYU's career rushing leaders
Player Att Yds TDs Years
Harvey Unga 696 3,455 36 2006-09
Jamaal Williams 631 3,392 33 2012-14, 2016
Curtis Brown 641 3,221 31 2002, 2004-06
Jamal Willis 576 2,970 35 1991-94
Lakei Heimuli 605 2,710 30 1983-86
Note: BYU's career rushing touchdown leader is Luke Staley, who had 41 from 1999-2002. Mississippi St. at BYU
P Friday, 8:15 p.m.
TV • ESPN