James Fuller was hurt when two former Oklahoma State football players implicated his son as someone who committed NCAA violations by taking money in this week’s Sports Illustrated series, “The Dirty Game.”
Fuller was angry, too.
His son is Darrent Williams.
Williams played cornerback at OSU from 2001-04, and was killed in a drive-by shooting on Jan. 1, 2007, after an altercation at a party.
“It’s easy to point a finger at an individual who can not defend himself,” Fuller said in an interview with the Tulsa World on Thursday night from his home in Hearne, Texas. “Because, is he gonna rise up from the grave and say, ‘I didn’t do it?’
“I know the facts. He didn’t accept anything from anybody.”
In Tuesday’s report, Williams was accused by former teammates Brad Girtman and Ricky Coxeff as having taken money from then-OSU assistant coach Joe DeForest.
Williams is one of two deceased former Cowboys who were accused in the report. His former teammate, Vernon Grant, also was said to have taken money, though Grant’s accuser wasn’t named in the report. Grant, who played cornerback opposite Williams from 2002-04, died in a car accident in 2005. In all, more than a dozen players were accused in part one of Sports Illustrated’s report, “The Dirty Game: The Money,” of having received improper benefits in violation of NCAA bylaws.
Part two of the report, “The Academics,” also accused Williams and Grant, among others, of “participating in academic misconduct.”
In “The Money,” Coxeff, a defensive back at OSU from 2003-04 before he was suspended and ultimately left school, claimed DeForest paid Williams and running back Tatum Bell, a charge that Bell denied. And Girtman, a Cowboy defensive tackle from 2003-04 who was kicked off the team, claimed a football staffer handed Williams an envelope “packed with bills.”
Williams can’t defend himself. But his father can. And accusations by Girtman, Coxeff and others are untrue, he said.
“Because we struggled — I mean, we struggled — to put that boy through school outside of his scholarship,” Fuller said. “All the little things he had to have, like tissue paper. Every time I came down, I had to bring tissue paper. Lotion. Soap. If all these boosters were giving him all this money, then why was I spending mine? Why was I spending my money? Why did he need so much if all these people were giving him so much?
“They gave him a scholarship, and we’re thankful for it. But all that extra stuff that they said somebody gave him, we don’t have a clue. I was inside his dorm room. Everything that he had in his dorm room, we purchased.
“If people were doing all these things that they were doing for him, then I wouldn’t have had to go into my retirement and get all the stuff I did for him. I actually had to dip into my retirement to get his clothes and all that kind of stuff.”
Williams grew up in Fort Worth with his mother, Rosalind Williams, and grandmother, Easter Williams. But Fuller said he and his son were together often.
Fuller, who works for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, has a theory on why people are still accusing his son of taking money. It first happened when he was a student at OSU: Williams’ mode of transportation was a Mercedes Benz.
“The reason all these accusations were made was because of the car he drove,” Fuller said. “That car was not his. That was his uncle’s car. … The truck was his, but nobody ever saw the truck because the truck was a plain ol’ truck. They never paid that any attention. But he drove that Mercedes to school. And I was against that. But his uncle wanted him to have it, so he let him drive it.”
Fuller said the Mercedes belonged to Rosalind Williams’ brother, Stanley Williams.
“It was Stanley’s car,” Fuller said. “Stanley just let him drive it.”
Fuller said he’s heard accusations made against his son before, but nothing like what came out in Sports Illustrated.
“This right here? This is crazy,” he said.
Fuller said his son never told him if he saw teammates receive cash, and never told him anything about DeForest giving players money or gifts or easy jobs at his home.
“He wasn’t that type of person,” Fuller said. “… If he knew anything, he wouldn’t discuss it. He was the type of person that would say, ‘That doesn’t have anything to do with me.’
“The only thing he discussed about his feelings with me was when the coach, coach (Les) Miles, when he went to LSU. That coach broke my son’s heart. Because he was crazy about that man.”
Fuller said he was particularly upset that no one from his son’s family ever got a call from Sports Illustrated seeking comment.
“They didn’t ask,” he said. “They just took somebody’s sob story and ran with it. They don’t care. Those people don’t care.”
Fuller said he hasn’t discussed a strategy yet with his attorney, Dallas defense lawyer Curtis Lilly, but said he wants to exonerate his son somehow.
“I don’t know how Curtis is gonna handle it,” Fuller said. “But that’s something we’re gonna pursue, to get his name cleared.”
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