As it turned out, Ken Williams's education was mostly in the field.
Drafted by the Chicago White Sox out of high school, Williams has taken what he learned from a professional playing career and parlayed it into one of the top jobs in baseball. Hired last fall as general manager of the White Sox--in charge of all player personnel decisions--the 37-year-old Williams became the second-youngest GM in the major leagues.
Williams, an outfielder, attended Stanford for two years, playing football in the fall and minor league baseball in the spring, then left school to pursue baseball full time. He spent six years in the big leagues, with stops in Detroit, Toronto and Montreal as well as Chicago. His best season was 1987, with the White Sox, when he batted .281 with 11 home runs and 50 runs batted in. The next spring, however, he fractured his ankle and spent the rest of his career as a part-time player. Had he not injured himself, Williams says, he might not have become such a good executive. From his vantage point on the bench, he began studying the game and learning its finer points.
And his studies at Stanford, though abbreviated, helped prepare him, too. "I was there long enough to understand that there was a higher level of learning, thinking and understanding," he says. "I wouldn't trade that experience for the world."
Hired by the White Sox as a talent scout after he retired as a player in 1992, Williams climbed the front-office ladder quickly. He was named vice president of player development in 1997. When longtime general manager Ron Schueler stepped down last fall, Williams stepped up.Within six months of taking over, he had engineered enough deals to disqualify him as a typical rookie. First, he negotiated a contract extension with the team's manager, Jerry Manuel. He signed a free-agent catcher, Sandy Alomar, traded for a starting shortstop, Royce Clayton, and faced down Toronto's attempt to rescind a trade that brought left-hander David Wells to Chicago to anchor the pitching staff.
If Williams's swift, decisive start is not unusual, as he insists, his promotion to general manager is. He is the only African-American general manager in Major League Baseball and only the third ever, following Bill Lucas of Atlanta (1979) and Bob Watson of Houston (1994-95) and the New York Yankees (1996-97). Williams and Manuel form the first African-American manager/general manager tandem in major league history.
Being black doesn't increase pressure on him, Williams says. "I am who I am. I've been black all my life. I do recognize, and I'm proud of, the fact that there may be someone out there who may be motivated by seeing me in this position."
Although he has succeeded as a player and executive, Williams regrets leaving Stanford early, and he advises young prospects to stay in school and earn their degrees.
"Of the athletes I've encountered over the last 19 years in this business," he says, "those who have their degrees are more prepared for the life of a professional athlete. They are prepared for the uncertainties as well as the lifestyle.
"Your athletic career is at best a short-term thing. One of the hardest things I've had to do was to look into some of these young men's eyes and tell them that their career was over. The realization, especially for those who didn't finish their academic career, hits very hard."
