Ex-Gophers star set to catch NFL dream, maybe as a first-rounder

Life outside football hardly existed for Maxx Williams over the past year. The former Gophers tight end was making a seamless transition from collegiate athlete to NFL prospect, without a break until the week before the NFL draft.

So the Waconia native is now on a weeklong vacation in Aruba. It's a brief moment for Williams to unwind away from football.

"My life is changing pretty drastically and pretty quickly when I get back," Williams said. "This is the last part of my life where I can just relax and really have no worries."

The draft, which begins Thursday night in Chicago, will be a hectic process that will determine the team for which Williams, widely regarded as the top tight end prospect in the draft, will play. He'll be a third-generation draftee in his family.

Williams opted to turn pro after his redshirt sophomore season, leaving behind two years of eligibility, to follow a family tradition. His grandfather, Dr. Bob Williams, played quarterback at Notre Dame and was drafted by the Bears in 1959 in the 28th round (332nd overall), passing up pro football to enter medical school. Maxx's father, Brian, was a first-round pick (18th overall) for the Giants as a center in 1989 and played 11 seasons in New York. Brian Williams met his wife, volleyball player Rochele Goetz, when both were athletes for the Gophers, and Rochele's father and brother also are former Gophers football players.

"I just always remember the night I got drafted, the look in my dad's eyes that you finally made it to that pinnacle," Brian Williams said. "All your dreams as a child, fortunately [Maxx] was around a lot of NFL activities. He understood what the NFL is. But for me, sitting back the last couple months, I'm dying for draft day."

Maxx Williams, 21, realized he was good enough to play in the NFL after his performance against Iowa last season. He had five catches for 46 yards, three touchdowns, made an eye-raising, toe-dragging catch on the sideline and added some nice run blocks.

Williams, for his 25-game career, had 61 catches for 986 yards and 13 touchdowns. He earned All-America honors last season. He declared on Jan. 2, the day after the Gophers lost to Missouri in the Citrus Bowl, jumping at the opportunity to be molded into a starting tight end by an NFL team. He boarded an early-morning flight the next day to Southern California to train for the league combine.

"That's when it really hit me," Williams said. " 'I'm done. I'm done with college.' It's just kind of been a dream ever since."

Gophers tight ends coach Rob Reeves said the staff knew Williams eventually would reach the NFL soon after he got to campus. The only question was when.

"We're just fortunate that Maxx came here," Reeves said. "He's got a great family that obviously loves the Gophers and loves the state of Minnesota. And it was exciting just being able to be around a great player like Maxx and watching him help us and take the program and move it forward."

Even after a long season, Williams felt he had to prepare his body immediately. The decision paid off with Williams, 6-4 and 250 pounds, placing in the top five among tight ends at the combine in the 40-yard dash, the vertical and broad jumps and the 20-yard shuttle.

Williams wouldn't disclose how many or which teams he's worked out for or traveled to for a visit other than the Vikings, who invited Williams to their annual pre-draft "Top 30" dinner.

But he said he was amazed by how much some NFL teams knew about him. Without any character or injury concerns, Williams said most teams wanted to know why he left school so early. But one team asked Williams about a parking ticket he received on his moped during his first summer on campus, and that caught him off guard.

"Any little thing about you and your history, they can go back to middle," Williams said. "If they want to know, they'll find out somehow. If they're going to invest all this money in you, they want to know so something bad doesn't happen in the future."

And the future looks bright for Maxx. He and Brian could be the eighth father-son duo to be selected in the first round if Maxx moves up that high.

"Thursday would be awesome getting picked in the first round," Williams said. "Seeing those names pass by, I'll probably start getting anxious toward the end of the first round. And how can you not be? You've worked so hard in your life for a moment and trying to make it happen."

"You don't get those moments a lot, so I'm going to take it in and wait for that moment to happen," Williams said. "Then you can ask me how I felt."