Transcript from Mike Williams interview....
PP "Mike, what have you been doing since the draft?"
MW "I've just been working out, literally just slaving like I'm gonna get a phone call any day or they will make a decision any day. Something's going to happen and I'm gonna play football somewhere this year so I'm just getting ready for it."
PP "So you're not taking any time off, just getting ready like your training for a combine or something?"
MW "Not really like that, I'm just keeping in shape so I can run around. You never know what's going to happen because we meet with these NFL guys and they just tell us to be ready. I talked to Bill Parcells a couple days ago and he asked me how much I weighed. I told him 227 and he's like "OK, that's good to go" and he said to make sure I'm in shape. When BP says something you kind of got to follow what he says."
PP "Oh so it's BP now! That's big time NFL. I hear you were hanging out in the Bahamas."
MW "I went down there just to relax, just to vent a little bit. It was a technicality (the court decision) and I still don't think it was a bad decision on my part because some things happened that were out of my control. I made my decision and I think anyone in a similar situation with any kind of sense would have done the same thing."
PP "We talked about what happened but now what's next for Mike Williams?"
MW "Well, the court ruling hasn't come out yet on the Clarett case and the initial tactic of the NFL was to stall it as long as possible. That could be a sign of good news, who knows, but I think if the ruling was in the NFL's favor it would've already come out. That's not my deal to find out, that's what I pay these lawyers for. Whatever happens, whatever comes down, I think there's a strong, strong feeling that if they rule against me that they're going to do whatever they can in their power to get me back to college so I think it will work out either way."
PP "If you had to say right now Mike, what is the possibility percentage-wise of you coming back to SC?"
MW "If the NFL doesn't work out and if the NCAA does reinstate me I would say the possibility of me coming back to SC is probably 95% considering my little brother is about to be a freshman there next year."
PP "Is your brother coming out here to play baseball or just to go to college?"
MW "He's a good baseball player but he doesn't really care if he plays or not, he just wants to go to college and be a kid. I told him to just give it a chance and try out and walk-on and see what happens. If I could go back to college it would be worth taking all the criticism and whatever else came my way just to have a year with my little brother at school."
PP "If you had to put a percentage on what's going to happen with the Supplemental draft, I know that's not something you control, but what do you think the chances are that will happen?"
MW "Right now I really don't know. I would say the chances are 70% that I'll get into the supplemental draft because of some of the legal stuff that's gone on. On one hand we don't want to bully the NFL, we don't want to be the aggressor toward them. I've always told my agent that I don't want to take the negative route towards this, I don't want to be the guy in the papers because I'm being aggressive toward the league. Basically I don't want to take the Clarett route because that was never my intention in the first place. We're just going to do everything in a cordial manner and try to take care of business so when the ruling comes out we can just go from there."
PP "Mike Williams on the show, he's been hiding out four 4 or 5 weeks..."
MW "Man, I've been out there. I was hanging out with the guys in LA a couple weeks ago..."
PP "Nobody hit us up. Talk about your relationship with your old teammates from USC, if you came back what do you think that would be like?"
MW "Naturally there would be some awkwardness because some of the guys haven't been around me. At the same time there are guys who have been there for a few years and have been around me so for the most part it would be well received. For the receiver group those guys are always like "you were supposed to stay and teach us stuff and if you come back you can still do that" so guys like Steve and Whitney want me back. I talked to Leinart and he's like "come on, man, you've got to get back here. Stop acting like a you know what", you know how Leinart is. I talked to Holmes, I talked to a lot of guys. I talk to my old roommate Frostee Rucker, I talk to him a lot and he's real adamant about it. It's good to know that the guys who have been there for a few years would want me back. I've talked to Coach Carroll a few times, I've talked to him this past week, him and Coach Kiffin, I talked to them in great detail. Coach Carroll said it would be a great thing for the alums and fans if it worked out that I came back. Being well received is not one of my main concerns because if I came back I wouldn't be coming back to win a national championship, I wouldn't be coming back to be a university idol, I don't really know how to put it."
PP "That might be kind of tough to avoid. Are you one of the most recognized guys in LA when you hit the streets here?"
MW "No, man, as long as Shaq and Kobe are there I don't have anything to worry about. I don't really have that problem because I don't go out a lot."
PP "Is there a bad taste in your mouth from this experience? Did you feel baited into something?"
MW "What people don't understand is, as far as the legal stuff goes, is that I signed a contract to be a part of the players association. They started licensing and merchandising me, doing trading cards and all that stuff, and then when the NFL went to court they sided with the NFL despite the fact that they legally represent me. We're not going to muscle the NFL because you really can't so we just have to take the best route while at the same time keep everyone abreast of what we're thinking. If it doesn't work out with the NFL I'm pretty sure they would do what they could do about this reinstatement with the NCAA. It was a technicality and I wake up every day thinking the top 25 picks should've already called me to thank me for their draft position, especially the receivers. It's kind of a bad taste in my mouth just because I'm not there but at the same time it's not the first time I've been dealt adversity in my life so I'll just knuckle up and try to find an alternate route."
PP "The worst case scenario is that you don't end up in the NFL or in college. Is it possible that you could end up in the Arena League or the CFL?"
MW "No, that wouldn't be an option. That's not something we've ever talked about. If that was the case I could just train for a couple months and show up at the combine, maybe that could be a good situation. I could show up at the combine, I wouldn't be overweight or slow or anything like that and I could just blow those guys away. My draft position won't change that much because these guys have already evaluated me, they've already seen me."
PP "You mentioned that you met with Coach Carroll and Coach Kiffin. Did you talk about the academic situation in terms of what you would need to do to return to USC?"
MW "We talked about everything. Coach Carroll has done his homework on the situation. The reinstatement process takes a matter of days, literally less than 48 hours, so it's not a weeks long deal. We talked about that process and the route they would take, I don't want to show their hand so I don't want to say the exact route, but it's very, very feasible and it's really just common sense. It really doesn't concern me if we have to take that route because it's not impossible from what I've been told and the homework that he did. They got some good people over there, "some" good people over there, and if that happens I'm sure it will work out."
PP "Lot of SC fans hanging on to that hope that we'll see Mike Williams back next fall. The #1, Mike Williams, joining us on the Petros Papadakis show."
