Which Robert was Bache asking for? To this day it’s unclear. What we do know is that to be safe, the Baches invited both Parker Mason and Williams over. Both came, and a new friendship between Williams and Bache was formed.

“We became real close friends in third grade and hung out all the time. We wrestled together, played basketball and football, always football,” Williams said. Little did Williams and Bache know at the time that their third grade pickup football games were a preview of days to come.

Later that year, Williams’s landlord in Boston saw him playing basketball and told him he was athletic. The landlord told Williams he’d be good at football and advised him to play.

Williams decided he wanted to be a running back. “I didn’t even know what it was, but I’d watched a little TV and played a little Madden, and I knew I liked running back,” Williams said.

Since then, Williams has played running back. In eighth grade, his family moved to Wayland so that Williams could live in the same community as his school. When talking about his move, Williams remembers his first play date with Bache.

“That one tiny mix up. If I didn’t go over, it would have probably been something different. I probably wouldn’t have ended up in Wayland in eighth grade,” Williams said.

After moving to Wayland, Williams started playing Wayland Pop Warner football. He, of course, played running back. Williams has played Wayland football ever since.

After playing for the freshman football team in ninth grade, Williams played for varsity his sophomore and junior years, sharing carries with older players. It wasn’t until late in the 2012 season, Williams junior season, that he earned an opportunity to start.

On November 27, 2012, roughly ten years after his first play date with Bache, Williams marched into Reading with the Wayland Warriors, including Bache, to take on Westwood High School. Williams’s goal was simple — to win an Eastern Massachusetts football playoff game.

Williams prepared for that game the same way he preps for all others, by relaxing, listening to music, then focusing on warm-ups. “There’s a process every game day,” Williams said. “I always forget the shirt, but once I have it, I just need to get through the day and be relaxed.”

Although Williams maintained the same ritual, this game was different. This was playoff football and a shot for Williams to earn the starting running back spot.

That night Williams scored four touchdowns and led Wayland to a 22 point victory. In the process he rushed for 319 yards, a new Wayland record. Williams left Reading High School the starting running back for the Warriors. Williams held on to that title for the remainder of his high school football career.

Although he didn’t know it at the time, Williams also earned himself the spotlight, attention that became a blessing and a curse. Williams’s first playoff game followed him into the offseason and beyond.

“At the beginning of the [2013] season I was named Boston Globe Preseason All Scholastics out of nowhere, and I had to live up to that,” Williams said. “It’s nice to be recognized, to hear that even small Wayland can have someone big come out, but then I have to live up to it. I have to be the big guy.”

“I don’t like hearing that I’m good. I don’t like hearing that the team is good. I just have to come out and play,” Williams said.

This year Williams worked hard to live up to expectations.

“Off the field people always ask ‘Robert are you going to do this?’ ‘Are you going to break this record?’ And sometimes it’s too much, but on the field I just play,” Williams said.

“Every week teams come out, and their main focus is to stop me, to hurt me, to make sure I don’t do anything,” Williams said. “It’s good that they think I’m good enough to focus on, but I have to work harder and harder each week.”

Still, Williams continues to push himself to succeed. To him, it’s all about improvement. Asked what motivates him most, Williams didn’t hesitate to answer. “The team’s a brotherhood. It’s all for them,” he said.

This year Williams was the focal point of the Wayland offense. Some say he was the offense. Williams rushed for over 1,500 yards and scored a team-high 19 touchdowns over the 11 game season. Williams scored by running, catching and intercepting the football. He broke his own single game rushing record by running for 324 yards against Burlington High School, and ran for 219 and 269 yards against Boston Latin High School and Concord-Carlisle High School.

Although the pressure has been tough, Williams has learned to live under the spotlight, especially on game day.

“When I go on the field on game day, it’s just football. It’s pay day, and I’m doing what I love,” Williams said. “I can’t be stopped. They can’t stop me no matter how hard they try. I’ll work harder than them.”

Reflecting on how he got to where he is, Williams appreciates the improbability of his situation.
Had Bache not written his name down or had his landlord kept his suggestion to himself, Williams probably wouldn’t have played Wayland football.

“Those little things change everything.”