Carter defensive tackle
Q: I understand you are active in your church and that you are a youth minister.
A: I was born and raised in church. When I went to Carter, got off on the wrong track, got off to that robbing and stuff.
But I was born and raised in the church. I knew I would come back.
Don't know my father. Me and my brother were raised by my mother, Cathy Hines. Mom brought me up in church.
Q: OK, since you've already brought up the robberies. ...
A: We got greedy, I guess it was. And then just the surroundings, a lot of things I'm finding out later.
I'm glad I did go to prison. I'm glad I did go, because of my surroundings. I had to get away from the 'hood. I was waaay over here. I had to pull myself away because I know if I didn't, I would have wound up getting back to that same mode, I believe.
I pulled myself out. Been married for 13 years. Have five kids. Wife is Latrina Williams.
Q: Your kids' ages?
A: Youngest are 12 year old twins. Oldest son Keith Williams is 20. Middle son is Terry Anderson, 19. Marshel Anderson is 17, she goes to Naaman Forest and is a cheerleader. Patrick Williams Jr. and Patricia. And three dogs.
Q: I understand the car dealership you work for is within view of Carter, and earlier you mentioned you are involved with Carter's mentorship program.
A: The vice principal, Stonie Arbuckle, came out when we did. He was a classmate of ours. One of the things I told Stonie is 'You know what I've been through. We brought embarrassment. We embarrassed the community in what we did. When we went out on the robbery spree, we embarrassed the community. One of the things I want to do is give back to the community.' He said, 'P.K., I understand.'
I'm real excited because that's going to give me the chance. I've been giving back to the church, since I mentor young men anyway. In fact, we come over to watch football.
I'm getting a chance to give back to the community that I brought shame to, once upon a time. That means a lot to me. God has a plan for my life and this is it.
You know what? When my cousin worked with me, Coach James was looking for his son a car. He didn't know I worked there. My cousin told him, 'I've got a surprise for you. Hold on.' And brought him inside.
When Coach James saw me, it was like that moment. The first thing he said was, 'P.K., I'm so proud of you.' That meant a lot.
This probably happened in June. Him and his wife came up there. That was a moment for me.
Q: Can you tell me about your youth minister job?
A: The church's name is Tabernacle of Deliverance for Gospel Pentecostal in Dallas, in Pleasant Grove.
In fact, when I decided that I needed to pull away from my boys, that was back in '94. I met my wife at a club, right before we went to Vegas to get married. I knew it was time for me to get back to the church and rededicate my life to God. That was in February of '95. I've been there for 13½ years. That's how long I've been married to my wife. So my babies, my twins, were born and raised there.
(He pulls his letter jacket out of a closet. It has patches down one sleeve, signifying the playoff levels. It says 'P.K.' and 'Mr. Williams' at the top, and 'I like Doing the Nasty.')
(laughs) "Just something I used to say as a young man."
Q: Where did the nickname, P.K., come from?
A: Coach James gave me that. We had two Patrick Williams'. The other guy was named Pacman. He played a little tailback. He was a sophomore. Coach said, 'What is your middle name?' I said Keith.
They call me pastor at the church. But it used to be that anybody who knew me called me P.K. It just kind of caught on. My family, my brother, even at the job, everybody calls me P.K.
Because my mom was a single parent, I didn't get to Carter until my junior year. In fact, I played at South Grand Prairie with Reggie Barnes. Coach James won't tell you, but this is a little inside information. I illegally played four games because we had to go to kind of like court to make sure why did I transfer to Carter.
I actually went there because at that time, we didn't have no place to live, so I went to live with my aunt. I had missed the Grand Prairie game while we had to clear all this out. The principal at South Grand Prairie told the committee, 'Listen, he was a great kid and the reason he had to leave was he had to.'
We were actually evicted from our house, so we moved in with my aunt. I didn't get cleared until after (those four games). They could have made a big deal out of it.
Q: At what point of your junior year did you transfer?
A: December of his junior year, after the football season was over.
When I first got there, Coach James looked at me. I told him what position I played. He said, 'Man, you're kind of small.' I said, 'Give me a chance. All I need is a chance.'
Wasn't nobody big. But we were quick. And we talked plenty of noise. Some of the things I can't repeat, but we talked a lot of noise.
My son was small and played receiver, like Marcus Grant. I told him, `Son, Marcus Grant would walk up to the receiver, shake his hand, look him dead in the eye and tell him, 'You're in for a long night.'
Q: I see by the patch on your jacket that you were co-captain?
A: Had a great spring game and the players voted me. I wish I had my yearbook because it was me, Robert Hall and Jessie when we played Killeen Ellison in our first game. They took a picture of that.
Q: Can you talk about the grade controversy erupting as the playoffs started?
A: Did it happen, changing grades? Yeah, it happened, back then, and it seems like it's still happening today.
We thought we were black and everybody was against us, didn't want to see us win, didn't want to see us go nowhere. But that just happened to be our year.
It was a week to week thing. Everybody was always doing an injunction against us. We would know either that Thursday or Friday whether we would play or not.
We were kids. We didn't get into the legal stuff other than if we were going to play or not. I think after they got so far, they said let it go, let's figure that stuff out later.
I remember at the end of the championship game, Coach James was handing out our medals. That was pretty neat. You only got so many, back then, because everybody didn't get a medal. It was a bummer, paying for our own rings, so nobody hardly bought any rings.
One of the young men I have at church played at Mesquite in '01. Man, his ring is like a Super Bowl ring.
I got a medal, but I haven't the slightest clue where it is. By me going to prison, my mom was just moving. Stuff got lost.
Q: How did the robberies start?
A: I worked at Jack In The Box on West Davis in Dallas. I told Carlos and Keith, 'Man, we can come up.' They were like, 'How?' I told them the plan. I said, 'This is what we can do; I'll let ya'll in from the back.' I moved the camera so the camera wouldn't be on them.
They used my car to get away in. They parked the car down the street. We did Jack in the Box one time, got away with it. By me playing for Carter, the manager didn't say anyhing, other than 'You OK?'
Now that's where a mentor comes in and tells you more than that, that God has more in store for you than that than just going that route.
That's why I love talking to these young people. I went in before my oldest son; my mom had him, but I've got them now; both of my oldest boys are in college. But my middle son, I've been a role model for him, the things that I've told him, don't do. That's why it's so important that the father be in the kid's life, at least a mentor, because there's a lot of experiences that we go through, that I went through, that my sons and the young men that I've mentored don't have to go through.
If they just listen to the voice of experience. That's why I'm so passionate about what I have to do. You have to love the young people to be a youth pastor.
It takes up a lot of your time. But I'm real happy because the road I've been down, I don't want my sons to go down. And I don't want the people I come in contact with to go down that road.
Q: So when did the other robberies happen?
A: I quit Jack in the Box and started working at the Pancho's on 67. We probably got about $1,200 a piece from the first robbery – that was a Friday night, it was the money night.
And what we did with the money was clothes. We bought clothes and gold, that's what we did.
Pancho's, I got Keith on there. It was me, Keith and Carlos, we said we can rob also on a Friday night. We set it up; we planned it. I let them in. Norbert, Jimmy and Carlos, it was those three. Went in and did the same thing. We told them where the safe was at, we told them who would be there.
I was "working." We got quite a bit of money off that one, probably $2,500 a piece.
Q: At this point you're probably thinking this is pretty easy, but is anything registering in your head that this isn't right?
A: Back then, in the 'hood, it was either that or sell dope to come up. Just to make it. We tried doing that, too, but that didn't work out, thank God.
We had moved in with my aunt. You see your aunt struggling, just trying to make ends meet. Bam, I got a brilliant idea, let's rob.
Now, a lot of these guys, Keith, Jimmy, Norbert, their parents made money. Gary's father, yeah, made some money. In that 'hood, there's some nice houses around Carter. It's still the hood, but some of those guys' parents made good money.
For me, I'm helping out at the house.
Q: You mentioned drugs?
A: We tried it, didn't really want to go down that road because so many people were doing it. We just said, 'Nah.'
Q: What kind of drugs?
A: Weed. In fact, I remember one time, my aunt went in the check my car and found some weed. Man, I blasted these guys. She was crying. I was saying, 'Nah, nah, nah, it's not me.' We were smoking, but we weren't selling.
Q: How often do you pull your letterjacket out?
A: Last year, at vacation Bible school, I pulled it out and I pulled my jacket out. And I had my yearbook. I relived my former glory days.
But this, I tell them how I came up and that's not the route to go. As a youth pastor, I can be comical and funny, but I tell them that what I did, that's not the road that you should go down. That's why it's so important that fathers be in kid's life, that you should at least have a mentor in your life.
Q: How many robberies were you involved in?
A: Three, I only got charged with three. I remember, me and Carlos, we were all good, all close, but Carlos was my best, best buddy. We decided, man, let's stop. We were fixing to go off, let's stop.
Carlos had a scholarship to go to Prairie View and I was going to walk on at UNT. In fact, when he got out of prison he went back. They still had his scholarship for him. I told 'Carlos, let's stop man, let's get out of this.' Me and Carlos were through.
I'll never forget this. They said, 'Man, Derric and Gary got caught.' We were just hanging out. I said, 'Doing what?' Robbing. They had just robbed. These knuckleheads went through the drive through in Derric's red Camaro. They were driving down Red Bird Lane.
Now, no one really turned us in. We turned our own selves in because they didn't have any type of evidence on us. So when the detective came to my house, had I told my aunt and got everyone together, they wouldn't have gotten us because they didn't have any evidence.
But I'm glad they did because even though I had stopped, I was still out there. We were alcoholics at 18. That's all we did was drink and hung out.
The system does rehabilitate you, it really doesn't. That's just a holding place. You have to make up your mind whether you're going to do right or not. Because down there, there were young guys, they were losers, they had been in two or three times.
You have to make up your mind that you want to do right because the system does not help. The system really makes you mad. It's just modern-day slavery is what it is. But I'm glad it happened because had we come together and told our parents.
Q: What happened when the detective came?
A: He said 'I want to talk to you. Let me take you down to the police station.' I hadn't told my aunt anything. So he got me into the room; I'm a scared kid, 18 years old, don't have an attorney present, they don't have any evidence. The only thing they've got is word of mouth.
He said 'We've got proof that you did this, you did this' – and I just wrote out my confession. Like I'm telling you now.
Just one by one, they got us. They did everybody the same way.
Q: But I understand some of the kids thought they would get probation instead of prison time.
A: No, he was a fair judge. I think he was real fair in how he sentenced us. But of course we would have wanted to get probation.
I don't know about the rest of my boys, but it helped me get to where I am now. I had a guy before I left pull a gun on me on Camp Wisdom, that was our hang out. The only reason the guy didn't shoot me was because there were too many witnesses around. But the same guy who pulled a gun on me is in jail for capital murder right now because he shot four people.
He pulled a gun in '89. I think he shot those people in '90 or '91. Name was Trody.
Q: Where did you do prison time?
A: I started out at the Navasota Unit down in Navasota, Texas. Eventually, during the course of our time, we all met up at Bridgeport, pre-release unit. We were all in the same unit.
Q: All of you?
A: Except for Derric and Keith. We all wound up in the same unit.
Q: Gary said y'all played basketball a lot.
A: Except for Derric and Keith. We were celebrities in prison. We were all good in sports and we would play basketball and win. Jimmy was unbelievable. He could sky above the rim. Him and Shawn played basketball for Carter.
We won a lot of tournaments. They didn't like us. Because we were who we were, didn't too many people mess with us.
Q: When did you get released from prison?
A: Got released Feb. 12, 1993. I did three years, four months, 19 days.
I did 13 years on parole. I came off parole in 2004. Before Bush's second term was the first time I got to vote.
Q: So far, you are the only guy who has said he is glad he went to prison.
A: Scripture says: David said it was a good thing I was afflicted, that I may know of God's ways, because of me going through that, it made me understand there's more to life than what I was doing. There's more to life than robbing and trying to come up.
You can live a good life, with God helping you out, because he balances this stuff for us. He's the one who balances this stuff for us, without selling dope, robbing, doing those things. Sometimes we're put in position where we have to learn. The only reason I am where I am now is because of God.
He had a perfect plan for my life – and this is it.
