“Basketball has always been my favorite sport, so if I have chance, I’m going to join any basketball team,” said Daniel Williams. And when he had the chance to join the Armijo Royals as a Junior Varsity (JV) player, he made sure to do that. He currently plays shooting guard.

“I’ve been playing basketball ever since I could remember,” he said. “It has just been the heart and of soul of my driving force towards success.” This is his first year with Armijo and he has no intention of making it his last. He’s played on other teams, too. When he lived in Atlanta, he played there. “I was even with the Rodriguez Mustangs for a very short period of time,” he said.

Williams was introduced to the sport by his older brother and has learned to watch the moves of some of his favorite players, Kyrie Irving who recently played for the Nets, and Kobe Bryant, who was a Los Angeles Laker.

“My most memorable game wasn’t even the highest scoring game. I wasn’t even supposed to play because I didn’t have my transcript, but they let me play anyway. During the game, I hit a buzzer beater. I ran over to bench in excitement and that was my 8th point so I did it for Kobe and Gigi. I wear number 24 and in that time was averaging eight points and two rebounds, and my team and varsity with the crowd was cheering loudly for me and the moment was priceless and awesome,” said Williams.

Playing a sport isn’t easy, but it is more challenging when things don’t go as planned. “COVID-19 messed me up,” he said. “I finally know how serious it is after experiencing it myself this year… it knocked me off my game because I was quarantined at home for five days, although it was supposed to be 10.” During his freshman year, Williams had to go through Distance Learning because the schools had shut down and it was hard to know basketball tryouts were, so he missed them. “I couldn’t play that year. I felt that, if I had, I would be better today.”

Basketball is not the only sport that Williams participates in. He has a talent for soccer and football as well. But it is basketball that he hopes to take on in college. “I see myself at USC or HBCU back in Atlanta,” he said.

“Start now with sports,” Williams said. “It’s never too early. If you really want to do this, you have to go through the hard stuff to get to the easy, but it’s not going to happen overnight! I hope to get better at basketball over the next couple of years and be one of few to go to college through Armijo.”