Donald Williams has a home with the Globetrotters
Don't get Donald Williams wrong, he really likes his new job.
But at this point, the familiar whistled melody of "Sweet Georgia Brown" might just be getting to the former North Carolina star a little bit.
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"You get sick of that," Williams says with a sigh. "As soon as you get to the gym."
The song is playing. Every day. Maybe the one big drawback to being a member of one of the world's most popular traveling troupes, the Harlem Globetrotters.
Other than that, there are no complaints from Williams about his gig. Now the man who was named Most Outstanding Player of the 1993 Final Four, when the Tar Heels' took home a national title, gets to be a winner every night.
Williams is a first-year member of the Globetrotters' East Coast squad, which means his main job responsibility is to travel from city to city in the United States and beat the poor New York Nationals night in and night out.
"It's been a good experience," Williams says. "It's just been surprising how the crowds are. We sell out everywhere."
Those fans show up to see a couple of different things. Primarily, of course, there is the famous basketball wizardry the Globetrotters perform - dribbling, twisting and passing in every humanly possible way.
But before that well-known part of the show starts, the "competitive" portion of the team - which includes Williams - takes the floor to give the fans some legitimate basketball action.
He and the rest of the competitive squad get the score up before bringing on the dazzling dribbling and passing.
So Williams still gets to do what he has always done - play straight-up competitive basketball. The only difference is now he has to occasionally mix in the showmanship made famous by his new team.
And even though Williams says he has no intention of venturing over onto the showy side of the team, he still had to learn a few ballhandling tricks.
When he joined the team, the Garner native had to learn the five basic steps necessary for the team's pregame "magic circle."
So was any of this roundball trickery tough on the man who buried a 22-footer to seal Carolina's last national title?
"For me, all of it," Williams jokes. "You have to practice it every day. They keep making you do it. At first, I didn't like it because it seemed hard, but I like it now. You do it every day and you pick it up."
Williams and his fellow Globetrotters play a game every night of the week, traveling with their resident whipping boys, the Nationals.
The domestic tour began in November with a tour of games against college hoops teams and will finish up the weekend of the NCAA Final Four.
In between, the Globetrotters hit cities big and small, including New York, where Williams and his teammates got to visit ground zero of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
"It was very shocking," Williams says. "It was early in the morning, so it was real cold. I couldn't believe it really. It was something to see."
Being with the Globetrotters might have Williams traveling all over the country, but he's just glad to be on American soil.
Prior to landing with his new team, Williams spent time playing ball in various places overseas. He won a championship in Austria in 1996 and took another league title in the Philippines in 1999, when he was named league MVP.
He even had an offer in the middle of the current Globetrotters' tour to pick up and take his game to France.
But with a wife, a child and another baby on the way in less than a month, Williams is trying to put roots down at home while still earning a living on the court.
He had been playing in Europe when a conversation with Donald Sinclair - a friend from Clayton and a Globetrotter for 14 years - put him on this most recent career path.
"He was telling me they were trying to get more serious and competitive," Williams says. "So he asked me to go out there."
A scout for the team called Williams a few times, and before long, Williams was with 100 other ballers - "It was crazy," he says, "straight tryouts, real basketball" - vying for a spot on the club.
When he made the team, he was glad to be able to play basketball professionally without leaving the country. But with hopes of reaching the biggest basketball stage in the world, even Williams doesn't know how long he will be a Globetrotter.
He says he plans to "play it by ear" during the summer, when he will likely try to get himself some looks in an NBA camp.
So while he won't continue to travel with the team after the Final Four, when it will depart for South America and Europe, Williams says he will miss it.
Feeling the thrill of victory is not the only thing Williams' experience with the Globetrotters has in common with his days at North Carolina.
"It's the same family atmosphere," Williams says. "That's the reason I decided to stay here. The unity we established here, I didn't want to leave it."
No matter how many times he has to hear "Sweet Georgia Brown."