[tps_header]Pete Williams[/tps_header]
[tps_title]NO. 9[/tps_title]
A historic day in the UA hoops program — the day Lute Olson and assistant Ken Burmeister (far left) signed Pete Williams in 1983 (Pete Williams photo)
Height-for-height and pound-for-pound Arizona has never had a more tenacious rebounder at the post position than Pete Williams.
He was listed at only 6’7″ and 190 pounds, a very slender, yet strong and physically-gifted player who held his own against 7-foot space-eaters inside the paint.
Lute Olson, to this day, calls Williams the best rebounder he coached at Arizona. That’s saying something because Williams played in Olson’s first two seasons in Tucson in 1983-84 and 1984-85. Great rebounders such as Anthony Cook, Ben Davis, Michael Wright, Channing Frye and Jordan Hill followed in Olson’s 24 years as head coach.
“Pete had an uncanny nose for the ball,” former teammate Craig McMillan, now coach at Santa Rosa (Calif.) Junior College, told former Tucson Citizen reporter Steve Rivera in a 2005 interview.
“He was barely 6 foot 7 and not very heavy, yet he got every rebound humanly possible. He was quick, aggressive and had great timing. All he thought about was rebounding.”
Williams has the best rebounding average in Arizona’s Pac-10/12 era at 9.2 per game, followed by Wright’s 8.4.
He was not only a workhorse on the glass but he did not give an inch when positioning inside. The combination of putbacks and scoring inside allowed Williams to shoot an Arizona-record 60.5 percent from the field in his two-year career after transferring from Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif.
“Looking back to when I was a high school senior and to think not only would I play in the Pac-10 after being a fan of the Pac-8 growing up, and then having an impact is incredible to me,” Williams told Rivera. “It’s unreal the things I was able to accomplish. But a lot was based on coach Olson. I had to show him I could play and that I wasn’t going to let him down.”
Williams, who turns 52 in July, works as a probation officer for the San Bernardino County Probation Department.
If anybody can set wayward youngsters straight, it’s Williams, who showed the good side of being a badass with how he overcame challenges throughout his career. Although people labeled Williams as too short, too skinny and not ready for big-time basketball, Olson believed Williams could be an important cog in getting the program off the ground.
