Less than 24 hours removed from winning the NXT Championship, Trick Williams is riding high. During an interview on WWE’s The Bump program this week, the newly crowned champion took time to inspire others to chase success.
When asked about how to chase dreams, something Williams says he is currently doing himself, he replied: “You gotta shoot your shot, man.”
He then told a story from his years playing college football. He described making the switch from one university to another, risking not making the team and potentially saying goodbye to the sport altogether. But in taking that risk, he reached heights in his career that he never attained before.
“I went to Hampton University my freshman year,” he explained. “Full scholarship. After being at that school I knew this wasn’t the place for me. My dream school was the University of South Carolina. So what did I do? I left the school where I had a full ride, full tuition, and I walked on the University of South Carolina. And that’s taking a chance because to walk on, there’s 200 people at the first tryout. They cut it down from 200 to 18. And from 18 to eight. At this time, the school I transferred to, the University of South Carolina, they’re number four in the nation. So I literally had coaches from my first school, Hampton, telling me ‘You just played your last down of football. That’s it.’ But I had to take a chance on myself and say this is what I wanna do, this is what I’m going to do. Not only did I make the team at South Carolina, I was outstanding offensive walk-on my freshman year, I was starting by the time I was eligible, I was the only player ever to be on the banner at the stadium.”
Williams defeated Ilja Dragunov on Tuesday night’s episode of NXT to capture his singles belt. He described the moment as a big win in his career, saying that it was the type of moment that all of the top wrestlers have throughout their time in the ring.
“When I was making a career change, I would go back and I would watch WWE clips and people who I thought was great,” he said. “The Stone Colds, The Booker Ts, The Rocks, The John Cenas, they had moments like this. To have my own moment like this, this is what it’s all about. This is why I wanted to do this. For me to experience this last night, it still feels like a dream.”
