Marquice Williams was nervous and excited. It was Sunday morning, Jan. 17, 2021. The next day was potentially the biggest of his professional life.
After years of meandering through colleges and bouncing among NFL teams, moving from positions as a Bill Walsh diversity coaching fellow to one as an assistant special teams coach, he was about to receive the chance he wanted.
The chance to interview to be a coordinator.
It was a time when everything was uncertain. Ever since Matt Patricia had been fired from the Detroit Lions, and Marquice’s specific boss, Brayden Coombs, had been let go weeks after that, his future was unknown.
He wanted to stay in Detroit but knew the coaching-transition reality, which is part of why he didn’t tell anyone in his family about any of his interviews. Marquice didn’t want to let anyone down if he didn’t get a job — even though the thought itself was paradoxical because of how proud his mother, Bridgette, and father, Aaron, were of him.
As he was getting ready, his phone rang. It was his brother, Brandon. For days, Bridgette and Aaron hadn’t been feeling well. Bridgette, who had been coughing, was working at home in Fresno, California, when Aaron told her he couldn’t taste or smell — a typical symptom of COVID-19. Aaron went for a test first, on Wednesday. Bridgette went Thursday.
By Sunday morning, neither had received results. Bridgette, full of life days earlier, started to feel unwell. Brandon told Marquice to connect with mom.
Marquice asked her if she received her COVID results. She hadn’t. Two hours later, testing showed that she had COVID. Throughout the day, she worsened. Brandon, who lived with his parents, kept Marquice updated.
By evening, Bridgette’s condition had deteriorated. Brandon and Aaron called paramedics. Brandon texted Marquice — who was on the couch at home in Michigan hanging out with his wife, Liz — saying Bridgette was going to the hospital. Marquice was confused. She just found out she had COVID. How was this happening so fast?
Around midnight, Marquice’s phone rang. Bridgette had a heart attack, believed to be caused by complications from COVID. She didn’t make it to the hospital. She died. She was 55.
Marquice was in shock. Bridgette was his biggest fan, his confidant, his sounding board. She was the person who kept him from quitting football after one week back in seventh grade. Who gave him the mantra he would live by: “Don’t half-ass it.” How could the person he told everything first, the person who meant so much to him and his young family, no longer be there?
“To this day,” Marquice said, “it still doesn’t feel real.”
Hours were spent on the phone with his brothers and father. Marquice bawled in his room alone and with Liz, sharing memories and collecting information with his grieving family. What was about to be one of the best days of his life transformed into one of his worst. The rest of his family had no idea. Marquice had a secret he still wouldn’t share. Not now.
Hours later, he was meeting with Atlanta Falcons coach Arthur Smith about a job.
Bridgette Williams always loved sports. A basketball player growing up, she tried to instill the game in her four sons. When they gravitated toward soccer and then football, so did she.
When Marquice was in high school, Bridgette sat in her brown Grand Voyager watching every practice. If it got too hot in the van, she pulled out a lawn chair and sat, the only parent in attendance. Coaches knew who she was, both because of her presence and her loud voice. On game nights, she could be heard from the stands, a pack of David’s jumbo sunflower seeds at her side, yelling “Smackledackle!” whenever one of her boys made a big tackle.
Aaron sat a row behind. He jokes now that one of them had to appear sane. They’d been together for decades, set up on a blind date by Aaron’s cousin when he was 21 and Bridgette was 18. It didn’t take. Six months later, the same cousin convinced him to attend a family wedding. She brought a friend: Bridgette.
Aaron thought: “Her again?” This time, though, the matchmaking worked. They began a long-distance relationship — Bay Area to Fresno. Got engaged, married. Had four kids. And now Aaron was here, the mellower half to his proud wife, the one watching as Bridgette videotaped every game her sons played — even making Aaron buy a new camcorder when one broke. It was her way of studying the game to make sure none of her sons “half-assed” anything.
“Came home and watched it again,” Aaron said. “Like, ‘Oh my God. We just came back from the game.’ She would just plug it in right away and rewatch it.”
When her boys went to college, she listened to faraway broadcasts or watched livestreams. Those high school tapes, consistently showing on their TV, still reside in their Fresno home.
It was her way of understanding. Among her sons, Bridgette was known as DTP — a nickname given by Marquice and his brother Mike, after Ludacris’ record label, “Disturbing Tha Peace.” When Bridgette came home from work, peace concluded.
Mom arrived and demands of chores and homework started. If tasks weren’t done, she’d bust into her children’s rooms and insist they stop playing video games until they were. Her regimented style mattered, including when she firmly bartered with an unhelpful salesman to get Marquice his first car, a black, two-door Chevy Cavalier.
Those messages, that wherewithal, manifested heading into his offseason of uncertainty. Know your worth. Know what you’ll accept, even if it means having to uproot Liz and the kids again.
Almost every day, either on the way to work or while coming home, Marquice called Bridgette. Whenever he had doubts, the message was the same. Any time his ambition to take another step in his career — the message pushed him. It was the same message she delivered in middle school when Marquice wanted to quit football after a week. A life motto ingrained in Marquice’s synapses forever.
If you’re going to do something, don’t half-ass it.
Marquice never considered canceling the interview. He alternated between sitting on his bed and lying down awake, processing the combination of disbelief and devastation detonated in his world.
How could he balance the last 36 hours — from Smith calling and asking Williams to interview on Saturday night, to the devastation of Sunday, and now the hope of Monday? There was a part of him unsure how to proceed. Liz pulled Marquice in a side room.
Channeling her mother-in-law and lost in her own grief, she consoled him and was as firm as Bridgette might be.
“She was so proud of him. So proud of what he’d accomplished. So proud of his dreams that she would’ve been pissed if he would’ve done bad,” Liz said. “She was just like a no-mess-around type of lady. She would’ve been like, ‘No, nuh-uh, we are not being dramatic about this.’ Like, ‘That happened. OK. We’re gonna keep it moving. Marquice, you got something to do here.'”
Marquice understood. Felt his mom telling him, “Don’t half-ass it.” In the morning, Liz left the house, making an impromptu elongated McDonald’s trip. On about 15 minutes of sleep, Marquice got on the Zoom with Smith.
For about 90 minutes Monday morning, they talked. Marquice presented his vision for special teams. Talked about his path and his life. He brought the infectious enthusiasm he always does. Showed his ability to problem-solve — an important quality for Smith.
Marquice never mentioned his mom. He did not want there to be sympathy during the interview. He wanted the job based on his merits. To this day, he doesn’t know how he got through the interview, one Smith called “unbelievable.” It validated everything Craig Aukerman, Marquice’s old boss with the Chargers and Smith’s former colleague with the Titans, told him when he said, “You’ve got to interview this guy.”
The next two days were chaotic. Liz, who studied social work, handled logistics and became the emotional-support system the rest of the family needed. She and Marquice — in one of the tougher moments — explained to their four kids their grandmother had died. Two of the four grasped it, but because of COVID, there would be no funeral or trip to California.
Navigating the crushing present and unknown future was impossible, and they still hadn’t told anyone about the interview. Then, on Wednesday, Marquice’s phone rang again.
It was Smith.
He started the call by offering condolences about Bridgette. He found out when Patricia called to recommend Marquice for the job. By then, Smith didn’t need convincing. He knew he wanted to hire Marquice.
Patricia’s revelation floored him. He did what? How? Had Smith known, he would have postponed the interview.
“First thing I said to him was, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?'” Smith said. “Because I felt awful that we had that interview, that I didn’t know and that I had the interview.”
Even a year later, Smith can’t believe it. Marquice explained why he wanted to do it, how it was something his mother would have pushed him to do. Then Smith shared his news. He offered Marquice the coordinator job he’d been striving for.
The emotions of the 72 hours prior overwhelmed. Marquice broke down. Told Smith about Bridgette, everything she’d done for him, the sacrifices she made and more details about what happened. As Marquice became more emotional, Smith started to get a lump in his throat. He’d experienced his own family grief and heard it in Marquice.
After the call, Smith, who was driving, had to pull over to the side of the road to collect himself. He called his wife, Allison, and said, “You’re not going to believe this.” He told her about Marquice.
“It broke my heart to hear about his mother,” Smith said. “And then it was, to see the impact, when he got the job, the emotions he had, sure, I felt for him. I kind of paused because it kind of shocked me.
“Like, holy crap.”
Back in Michigan, Marquice hung up the phone and stepped back into the room where his wife was waiting. She’d been a coach’s wife for long enough to know the difference between a short call and a long call.
He looked at Liz and cried again. The type of conflicted tears impossible to explain. They called Aaron and Marquice’s brothers. Told them the secret they’d been holding. The Williams family found hope and a moment of bittersweet joy.
Lingering was the thought of the one person he couldn’t call, the person with whom he typically shared all job news first, after his wife. The person who would be most excited, who would be going all around Fresno proud of her son, wasn’t with them anymore.
A year later, days are still hard. Their last conversation still clear. Marquice calls Aaron more now, just checking in. More responsibility at work became a helpful distraction. When he reflects, he’s still not sure how he got through it. In the last month, Liz said he has opened up. Wanted to have tougher conversations.
Recently, Marquice opened a drawer on his nightstand and found an inspirational book he hadn’t looked at in a while. Inside was a card from late December 2020 — when Marquice’s future was uncertain. It was from Bridgette.
And all the memories — and tears — came flooding back.
“There’s no time limit on the grieving process, and I’m trying to understand that,” Marquice said. “I’m the type of person where I kind of hold stuff in, but it’s been great to be able to talk to other people. I was blessed to have a mother in my life, nothing wrong about that, and it’s why I’m blessed to speak about her, because every single day, everything that I do — if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.
“To get the opportunity to be her son and every day make her proud. Even though she’s not on this planet, I can still make her proud. That’s something every day I think about.”