Cavalier To Take On The World
Checking out the Princess Anne High girls basketball team photo on the wall in coach Darnell Dozier's office, it's easy to find Elizabeth Williams.
She's the one in the middle, two rows behind the state AAA title trophy her team brought home last year, the Cavaliers' third championship since 2002.
She's also at least half a head taller than everyone else - the norm for a 6'3" lady finishing up her second year of high school. But that's not the only time that Williams stands head and shoulders above others in the caging court sport.
She's done so since she started playing AAU ball in the summers a few weeks ago. She did so last season, making All-State honors (not the norm for a sophomore!). And this summer, she hopes to stand above with a new group of girls, representing an area just a bit bigger than the Old Dominion.
As she and her fellow Cavaliers rolled through a 31-1 season last year, Williams started hearing rumors from her coaches - something about being chosen for national tryouts. Then one day, a letter came in the mail. Flipping it open, Williams learned she'd be taking a cross-country vacation shortly, and ending up at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, vying for a spot on the USA Basketball Women's U16 squad.
"It was pretty nerve-wracking," Williams recalls. "I was excited and nervous at the same time."
In late May, she hopped on a plane and headed west.
"On the flight, there were a couple of other players there," she says. "I knew everyone was so ready to play. There were quite a few people (I'd played before)." Cierra Burdick, a North Carolina native and longtime on-court opponent and off-court friend of Williams, was onboard.
As the first few hours of May 28 rolled around, Williams and her potential teammates got their rooms and roommates, then headed into battle. Right away, she noticed something unusual.
"I think I was the fourth- or fifth-tallest," she says. "That was different, but I kind of liked playing against people my size."
Then the caging began.
"It was mainly drills at first," she says, "but we scrimmaged at the end."
On the second day, however, Williams encountered some off-court opposition.
"My stomach started bothering me, and I had to take some medicine," she says. "The altitude kind of got to me, and I started getting tired quicker."
As players started running past her on the court, Williams saw her chances slipping away. That's when she told the pain and fatigue to go elsewhere.
"It got to me mentally that I wasn't playing well, but then I just got over it," she says. "I was like, 'I can do this,' and then I was better. I knew that if my offense wasn't going well, I would always play defense and rebound, and those are the main things that I do."
Looking around, she could see everyone else doing their thing as well.
"Everyone was good," she says. "You couldn't say one person was bad. Any combination that they put together would always be pretty good."
After a strong performance on the morning of May 30, Williams and her teammates went to a private room to find out the final selections. On the list of alphabetical names, Burdick was one of the first members to be called. Then came name after name, and Williams was left with the issue of having a last name that's not only one of America's most common, but so late in the alphabet.
"I thought I had a pretty good chance, but when you're sitting in that room with everyone around you, you're nervous," she remembers. The team would have 12 members, and 11 had been called.
Then came the last one. It was her.
"I was pretty relieved," says Williams, the team's only Virginian. "I was like, 'Thank you! Thank God!' I was thinking about how hard I'd worked, how hard everyone on the team had worked."
For the next few days, the 12 new members worked out together for the first few times.
"We just practiced," Williams says. "We had two practices a day. The level of competition was definitely high."
Coach Barbara Nelson hopes the squad's success goes even higher in August when she and her girls head down to Mexico City for competition (they're scheduled to do some more practicing together just before the event starts).
"I'm real excited about the group that has been selected," says Nelson, who spent two decades coaching high school ball before taking the reigns at North Carolina's Wingate University.
"One of things that's really special about Elizabeth is that she's not only very intelligent (Williams' GPA is just below 4.0), but that she's a very good athlete. She runs the floor really well, both offensively and defensively. She blocks a lot of shots. She changes the game along the basket for her opponents. Those are things that will really help in international play."
As Williams headed back home, at least one person wasn't surprised at her accomplishment.
"I knew she'd make it when she left," Dozier says. "You have to know Elizabeth; anything she sets out to get, she's going to get it."
But whether she helps her team to the top of the world just before her junior years kicks off, Williams will still be thinking about a repeat performance at Princess Anne.
"I usually take a couple weeks off before summer ball," she says, "so this doesn't really bother me."
And while it's much too early for her to worry about her post-Princess Anne time, Williams has quite a few ideas.
"I've always wanted to be a doctor," says Williams, still far from decided about a college, "so I never thought TOO much about the WNBA, but it's still in there."
