This is the second in a three-part series on Jazz point guard Deron Williams - from his childhood days as a wrestler in Texas, to high nearly winning an NCAA championship at Illinois, to becoming floor general of the Utah Jazz and perhaps landing a contract worth as much as $90 million.

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Seven years after he made it, Deron Williams remains a bit baffled by his decision to go to Illinois out of his Texas high school. Having grown up mostly in and around Dallas, he'd never been to the university, and had no real connection to it.

After other schools, such as North Carolina and Georgia Tech, had blown him off, Williams was coaxed into heading north by fellow incoming freshman Dee Brown, who correctly surmised that the 6-foot-3, 205-pound guard could help him win Big Ten championships - and maybe something bigger.

Still, Williams suffered in his first year with the Illini, despite starting 30 of 32 games and ranking third in the conference in assists. His sufferings ranged from the emotional to the meteorological.

"It was cold," he says. "I was homesick. I wanted to leave my whole freshman year."

When his coach, Bill Self, took the job at Kansas at the end of that 2002-03 season, Williams was almost certain he wanted out. "I was going to transfer," he says. "I'd never heard of Bruce Weber. I didn't know him. Dee and Luther [Head] convinced me to stay."

There was another matter, a more personal one: In 2002, Williams had a baby daughter with his longtime girlfriend and future wife, Amy - "I've known her since the second grade," he says. Williams was still a teenager, and a little unsure how best to handle his new role and responsibilities. He never knew his own father, and that weighed heavy on his mind.

"When I found out I was going to have a child, I wasn't mad, I just didn't know if I was ready for that," Williams says. "I was scared, scared to tell my mom. I didn't want to run from it. That's one of the reasons I thought about transferring [back to a school in Texas]. I flew in and out of Dallas to see her born. It was crazy, a great experience."

Meantime, Weber took stock of what was on hand at Illinois and quickly figured out that Williams was his best player. He switched up the offense, featuring the guard more, which allowed Williams to expand his game. Although he broke his jaw in December of that second season, necessitating the insertion of a plate and four screws, he led the team in scoring (14 points) and averaged more than six assists. Williams was an all-Big Ten selection.

In his junior year, Williams was comfortable mostly feeding the ball to his teammates - "I didn't have to score," he says, "I didn't care, as long as we won" - and he enjoyed the college life in Champaign. Amy and the baby moved to Illinois to be closer to Williams, who was probably a more mature player than a fully grown adult at that stage. He lived and learned in both arenas.

"We were treated like rock stars on that campus," he says.

The Illini went undefeated - until losing by one point to Ohio State in the last game of the regular season. In a memorable NCAA Tournament, they came back from a substantial deficit late against Arizona to beat the Wildcats in overtime. Williams exerted himself in the final minutes in a manner with which Jazz fans have become familiar, scoring 15 points over that short, decisive span. "I still haven't watched that game," he says. "I'm waiting. Maybe I'll watch it with my kids one day." Illinois went on to lose to UNC in the title game.

Thereafter, the Jazz moved up to take Williams with the No. 3 pick of the 2005 draft.

Life as a rookie

He says he was pleased by the move, that it finally showed him the respect he had craved since being undersold, at least in his view, by so many coaches and observers through his basketball career.

Williams had no problem going to Utah.

"All I cared about was winning," he says. "I had four kids on my high school team who were Mormon. I knew them. They never seemed weird to me. I thought this was the best situation for me."

Williams had his doubts later, when Jerry Sloan limited his minutes through his rookie season, sometimes playing guys like Keith McLeod and Milt Palacio in front of him. At the time, Sloan justified his actions by saying that John Stockton didn't start as a rookie, why should Williams? The trouble with that thinking was that Stockton had Rickey Green, an All-Star point guard, ahead of him. Williams had two scrubs.

"I probably should have played him more back then," Sloan confessed during the Jazz's most recent playoff run, three seasons after the fact.

Williams agrees, but he knew it from jump.

"That first year, I was the best point guard here," he says. "No disrespect to those other guys, but if I had started from the beginning, we would have made the playoffs that year. We were only two wins away.

"It was just Coach Sloan. He pissed me off - a lot. I hated him. I hated him. I didn't like him too much . . . I was still going to play hard. Some guys cry about it. I was going to play hard, no matter what. That's just me."

And that's why another issue with Sloan - an insinuation by the coach - that angered Williams was his suggestion that the point guard needed to become more diligent in his practice habits. "Coach talked about me not working hard," he says. "I don't like to get into that." But he wanted to prove Sloan wrong, just the way he had proved others wrong.

That kind of sentiment and motivation was right in his wheelhouse.

One additional hiccup that first season was Williams' infamous "Torrey Ellis" episode in Park City with Robert Whaley, during which the Jazz rookies scuffled with a bar patron, and, in the aftermath, gave police fabricated names. They also initially lied to the Jazz about the incident. It's another thing Williams doesn't like to get into, but it did bring to his attention a serious need to further grow up. If he was going to become the Jazz's centerpiece, he had to get smart - as a man and as a player.

Off the court, he was a rough stone rolling.

On it, once Sloan lightened up, his education advanced quickly.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.

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COMING FRIDAY Part 3: Sloan and Williams jibe, the point guard takes over as undisputed team leader, and considers his future with the Jazz.