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Young star rolls dice on Vegas

Williams-Goss pulls up Clackamas roots hoping to help him star in NBA

By kerry eggers

The Portland Tribune, Jun 23, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Point guard Nigel Williams-Goss, 14, of Clackamas, has headed to Las Vegas, where he has a full, four-year scholarship to national basketball champion Findlay Prep.

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The most-acclaimed junior-high basketball player in Oregon history will probably never play a second of high-school basketball in the state.

His name is Nigel Williams-Goss, and if you haven’t heard of him, chances are you will in the not-too-distant future.

Williams-Goss just completed his eighth-grade school year in Clackamas, and on Sunday he departed via U-Haul with his mother, Valerie Williams-Goss, for Las Vegas, which becomes their probable home for at least the next four years.

The 6-2, 165-pound Williams-Goss is bound for Findlay Prep, a basketball program financed by a Las Vegas millionaire that features some of the top prep players in the country.

In April, Findlay Prep won the ESPN-televised inaugural national high school championship, beating storied Oak Hill Academy of Mouth of Wilson, Va., in the title game.

Williams-Goss is one of 10 players to receive a full scholarship — said to be worth $18,000 annually — for the 2009-10 academic year from Cliff Findlay, a Nevada-Las Vegas booster and automobile magnate who began the Findlay Prep program three years ago.

“Tuition, fees, books and room and board are provided for our players through (Findlay’s) educational foundation,” Findlay Prep coach Michael Peck says.

Findlay Prep players attend classes at Henderson (Nev.) International School, a private, non-denominational school with about 70 students in its four grades. As the Findlay Prep program enters its fourth year, Williams-Goss is the first incoming freshman with the chance to be a four-year player.

“Nigel was a good fit,” Peck says. “It’s a unique situation. He’s serious about everything. He’s an academically sharp young man, ahead of his years in terms of maturity. Unlike a lot of kids, he has some foresight in his life.”

Indeed, during his three years at Sunrise Middle School, he never received anything but an “A” grade.

“Honestly,” says Williams-Goss, who turns 15 in September, “if I got a B, I’d be so mad, I wouldn’t know what to say.”

Williams-Goss knows where he wants to go in life. He is not aiming low.

“Most young basketball players want to get to the NBA,” he says evenly. “I want to star in the NBA. I’ve always been one to want to be above the competition, to be the best every time I step onto the floor. When I’m in the NBA, I want to be the best, too.”

Most of the players at Findlay Prep live together in a house provided by their benefactor. Williams-Goss will live with his parents, Virgil and Valerie, who have moved to Las Vegas.

Virgil — who says he played one year at Contra Costa (Calif.) College and two years professionally in England — recently moved to Vegas after finding a job with a real-estate mortgage business. Valerie will continue to run a social-service agency in Portland with Sonya Strickland, wife of Jefferson High coach Pat Strickland, who coaches Ime Udoka’s I-5 Elite AAU team, of which Nigel is a member.

“When Nigel decided he really wanted to do this,” Valerie Williams-Goss says, “my agreement was OK, but I wouldn’t let him be parented by other people.”

“Nigel will be living with us,” Virgil Williams-Goss says. “There will be times when we plan on him staying at the house for team development, to get to know the players and so on. But 99 percent of the time away from school and basketball, he’ll be at the house with us.”

“I talked to a lot of the players, and they say they miss home, miss family,” Nigel says. “I’ll still miss my friends, but it’ll be a lot easier with family there.”

Nigel has been on the national basketball map for some time. One scouting service ranked him as the No. 1 seventh-grade player in the nation. He’ll make his second appearance this summer at the invitation-only Junior All-America camp in Lexington, Ky.

Camp director Clay Dade gushes about Williams-Goss.

“Nigel is one of the kids who struck us as a unique player and person,” Dade says. “We felt he was special in terms of being coachable and wanting to be good. He was a refreshing change from a lot of kids you see these days who have an entitlement mentality.

“We noticed he’s well-rounded, with interests other than basketball. For instance, he is fluent in Chinese. And we were really impressed with his ability. He was one of the top three kids in (the seventh-grade) class, and that class was loaded. If he’s not No. 1 (among this year’s eighth-graders), he’s right up there in the top three in the class.”

Growing up in Clackamas, Williams-Goss always was a talent beyond his years.

“Ever since I started playing, I’ve played against older kids,” he says. “When I was in second grade, I was playing against fourth- and fifth-graders. I play up to get better. I never want to stay at my level. It’s helped my game a lot.”

Last year, Williams-Goss was a member of the I-5 Elite’s under-17 team, playing with some teammates four years older.

“You wouldn’t have known,” I-5 Elite coach Kumbeno Memory says. “In one game, Nigel went up against (Villanova-bound) Malik Wayans, the second- or third-best (prep) point guard in the nation, and held his own.”

“The speed and strength of the older guys were a little new to him,” says Udoka, the San Antonio Spurs’ swing man who sponsors I-5 Elite and keeps a close handle on the team. “But as far as running the team, a seventh-grader playing with high schoolers, he looked great.”

This spring, Williams-Goss joined Stickland’s new I-5 Elite under-16 team. The only 14-year-old on a squad of 16-year-olds, he was the top scorer and floor leader.

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