By DONNA THORNTON, Editor
Albertville High School’s flag football program is only 4 years old, and senior Zoe Williams was there from the start.
Head coach Quinton Williams said after Zoe attended an interest meeting about the burgeoning sport for female athletes, she was the first student he asked to sign up. Starting out, it was tough going at times. After a 60-0 loss to Oxford in the first season, he had a talk with the team.
“I promised them if they stayed with us, we’d have a lot of firsts,” he recalled.
A big “first” came Friday, when Zoe Willliams signed on to play flag football with the University of North Alabama – making her the first Division I signing for Albertville and for the area.
“This is a really big deal,” AHS Principal Steven Hudgins said, and it could not be happening for a better person. “She is an incredible human being.”
Signing with the Lions was a tough decision, Zoe said. She was considering Snead State Community College, too. “I love the coaching staff at Snead State,” she said, and UNA has great coaches as well.
UNA offered something special — a chance to replicate the experience of inaugurating a new sport.
“My first year with them is going to be their first year,” Zoe said to have flag football. “It’s exciting. It’s going to be great to help build a new program,” just as she did in high school.
Zoe played rusher and center on the Aggie team this past season, which ended with an overall record of 12-6 and made it to the first round of the Class 6A-7A state playoffs.
“You’ve helped build this program. You’ve helped make it what it is,” Coach Williams said. “As long as I’m here, your fingerprints will be all over this program.”
In addition to being a force on the field, he praised Zoe for being a role model for other players – including his daughter.
“You make the players around you better,” the coach said. “Good players stand out. Great players make others stand out.”
Thomas Snellings, coach of the Sand Mountain Smoke, a travel flag football team and Zoe’s personal trainer, praised her for having a hard-to-find quality in the competitive world of sports: selflessness.
He said he’d seen Zoe “sacrifice for the team,” sometimes giving up her time for her teammates. “She would do that for others without expecting anything in return.”
Zoe was flanked at the signing table by parents Amy and Brad Williams, and her brother Ethan, all having traded their red and blacd for UNA purple.
Brad Williams recalled how 8-year-old Zoe asked to go running with him. She kept pace, and would not quit, and soon entered a color run, winning her age group.
And he remembered getting a call while he was overseas, telling him Zoe had passed out at a track meet while running an 800 – but only after she’d crossed the finish line.
“She’s competitive and she’s fierce. She wants to do better. The thing I’m most proud of is, she wants you to succeed, too,” Brad said, speaking before many of Zoe’s teammates from flag football, track and softball. “She will push you to be better and she will stick with you.”
Amy Williams noted how raising a daughter, one does often expect a football scholarship in their future – at least not in years past.
She remembered Zoe telling her she wanted to give up band to pursue flag football. “I thought, ‘OK, we’ll see where this goes,’” she said. She’s happy now with where it’s going.
Zoe said she was excited to see where this next chapter of life takes her. She said she was grateful her teammates, coaches and school administrators.
Hudgins said Zoe has been an amazing example for underclassmen in the school, and the perfect example of what an Albertville Aggie should be. He said Zoe has been babysitter for his children, too, so it is special to witness her success.
He said he’d watched her play from the program’s start in her freshman year through last year “when you were truly unstoppable.
“You represent Albertville well in everything you do,” Hudgins said.
Albertville High School’s Zoe Williams celebrated signing to play flag football for the University of North Alabama Lions Friday, before a crowd of friends and teammates. She’s the first Albertville flag football player to sign with an NCAA Division I school. From left: Sand Mountain Smoke coach Thomas Snellings, Amy Williams, Zoe Williams, Brad Williams, Ethan Williams, and AHS flag football head coach Quinton Williams. Photo by DONNA THORNTON / The Leader
