By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – For awhile now, Sam Williamson was commuting back and forth from Cookeville to see his family in Murfreesboro.
Now that he's accepted the offer to stay on at Tennessee Tech as the Golden Eagles' defensive line coach for head coach Dewayne Alexander, he's going all in as he enters his 12th season with the Tech program.
"Cookeville, Tech – it's home to me now," Williamson, 35, said. "I've been here for a long time. I enjoy Tennessee Tech, I enjoy the community. I've been lucky – I've enjoyed working with every staff that I've been with. I fit in well with all of them.
"I think Coach Alexander's going to do a great job, first of all. I'm really excited that he kept me on."
Two years ago, Williamson was venturing into unfamiliar territory.
A new head football coach had been hired as Marcus Satterfield took over the Tennessee Tech program, so there was a degree of uncertainty as to whether he'd keep the Watson Brown-era coach.
But Williamson was hired on, helping smooth the transition from one coach to another.
Two years later and the situation is a bit rosier. The uncertainty isn't there because Alexander fully intended to keep one of his fellow Golden Eagle coaches in place – because Alexander knew exactly how much Williamson means to Tennessee Tech football.
"Sam is such a quality person," Alexander said. "He's always had a great relationship with his players. Sam and I worked together for three years when I was previously on staff. I was the offensive line coach and he was the defensive line coach, so we worked a lot against each other in practice and worked closely together.
"I know Sam and how he treats the players. In his heart, he's all about Tennessee Tech. He was here for Watson Brown, he was here for Coach Satterfield, and he's always going to do right by the players, so it was very important for me to have Sam stay on the staff. He's excited about staying and I'm excited to keep our friendship and working relationship going."
Without a doubt, Williamson is the epitome of the players' coach.
"He relates well with them," Alexander said. "He cares about them, but also cares enough about them to discipline them and make sure they're doing things right. It matters to him when they do well and when they make a mistake. He is what we're looking for on our coaching staff – guys who can communicate well and can relate to our players. There's nobody who embodies that more than Sam."
And with a transition between head coaches, continuity is very important.
"Especially for the players," Williamson said. "When we recruit a guy, we want to be with him, we want to raise him for four years. You can't get everything out of a guy in two years, a year-and-a-half. When we recruit a guy, we want him to know that we're going to be here throughout his career. Hopefully, from here on out, we can tell a guy that and mean it."
Williamson's been there before and knows exactly what the players are going through in the transition.
"I think we make a bigger deal out of it than it really is," Williamson said. "It is tough on them. We have to do a good job of preparing them for a new regime, but for them, they have to learn a whole new defense, a whole new offense, learn 11 new personalities and their coaching styles, fit in to what the new regime wants to do, fit in to different off-the-field rules and expectations. It's tough in ways, but it happens every year and all over the country. These days, it's tough to find guys who stay at one place four, five, six years. The athletes of today, they're used to it. Even in high school now, you've got guys who have gone through three or four coaches in a four-year span. I hate it and it's tough on them, but like here at Tech, it's been done before. They've been through it."
Now, with a stable role in place, Williamson is thinking about making Cookeville feel even more like home.
"I'm looking to move my family back to Cookeville," Williamson said, referencing his wife, Audrey, and sons Amaree (9) and Braxton (4). "I travel back and forth from Murfreesboro, but Cookeville's home."
Through his 11 previous seasons in Cookeville, Williamson helped oversee the Golden Eagles' defensive line as Tech won the 2011 Ohio Valley Conference championship.
A 2005 graduate of UAB, Williamson played for Watson Brown as a defensive tackle – earning the role of team captain twice, Conference USA Player of the Week twice and named to the C-USA Academic Honor Roll. He saw starting duty as a sophomore, then became the full-time starter as a junior and senior, rolling up 106 total tackles, including 12 tackles-for-loss and four quarterback sacks. He also played on the Blazers' Sheraton Hawai'I Bowl team.
Williamson was also active in Birmingham's Big Brother/Big Sister program as a student-athlete.
He then joined his staff as a volunteer assistant coach following his graduation in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in justice science. He also worked one year in UAB's Sports Medicine and Fitness program, mentoring high school seniors and supervising high and middle school student-athletes.
Having the connection with Alexander as co-worker before told Williamson everything he needed to know about the job.
"He's awesome to work with," Williamson said. "He's a great guy. He does everything by the book. He cares about his players. The thing about Coach Alexander that most people don't say a lot about him is he's a heck of a football coach. Everybody knows what kind of guy he is, a great community guy, a great family guy, but Dewayne Alexander is a heck of a football coach. A dang good football coach. I coached with him before and he's the real deal. He knows X's and O's, he can handle his players, but he's a heck of a football coach."
Photo by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information
