Reusse: Former Gophers assistant Jimmy Williams dies at the age of 77

Jimmy Williams had one long run as a Gophers basketball assistant and should have had another try with Tubby Smith in 2007. Williams died on Monday at 77 at a care facility in Monticello, Fla., debilitated by severe Parkinson’s disease and other ailments, and wiped out financially.

What happened with the Smith-University of Minnesota fiasco had much to do with the latter situation.

Smith had left under pressure at Kentucky and took the job at Minnesota in 2007. He wanted an ace recruiter with Minnesota connections and offered a job to Williams, then an assistant at Oklahoma State.

Williams quit Okie State and headed to Minnesota. Athletic director Joel Maturi was made aware of an NCAA report on the end of Bill Musselman’s coaching time with the Gophers in 1975, in which Williams was mentioned in recruiting machinations.

Maturi had the Gophers renege on the coaching offer to Williams. He was left without a job. There was a lawsuit that dragged on and a jury decision to benefit Williams by $1 million.

Jim Dutcher, the post-Musselman head coach, had been Williams’ boss for over a decade.

“I testified at the trial,” Dutcher said Tuesday. “I was asked, ‘How do you know it was an official offer?’ I said, ‘The university gave him a credit card to go recruiting and keys to the building. Do they do that for a coaching ‘prospect?’

“The university’s attorney’s response was, ‘We don’t have any questions.’

“The jury came back later and asked if there was a limit to what they could award Jimmy. And then he won that award on appeal. And then the university took it to the state Supreme Court, where half of them recused themselves because they were teaching at the ‘U,’ so they brought in three former judges and they ruled for the school.

“It was horrible, what the University did to Jimmy Williams.’’

Dutcher was the leading candidate to replace Musselman when he left for the ABA’s San Diego Sails (and took Mark Olberding with him) after the 1975 season. Paul Giel showed Dutcher a preliminary report on NCAA findings against the program.

“It was the same as all reports — the head coach trying to put the blame on assistants,” Dutcher said. “Even in that FBI case a few years ago, the assistants were hung out to dry … the head coaches didn’t know. Except they always know.

“I saw the report and decided to bring back Jimmy Williams. He was an excellent recruiter, obviously, and also an underrated coach.

“He worked with our big men. Mychal Thompson would be going against a young Kevin McHale on a separate basket every day, then McHale would be going against Randy Breuer, and Jim Petersen. We had a string of big men that Jimmy really helped.”

Dutcher’s Gophers won a Big Ten title in 1982. The three full-time assistants were Williams, Stu Starner and Flip Saunders, in his first year.

“All of them are gone now,” said Dutcher, 91. “Only Jay Pivec, the grad assistant, and me are left.”

Saunders died at 60 in 2015 while coaching and running the Timberwolves. Starner died at 81 last month in Montana, where he first went to coach in 1983 (Montana State) and retired later in life.

Musselman had come to the Gophers in 1971 as a 30-year-old out of Ashland University in Ohio. More remarkably from an age standpoint, he hired two of his recent players — Williams, 24, and Kevin Wilson, a year younger, as his main assistants.

Wilson was turned off by Musselman’s antics. He left the Gophers at the same time as Musselman and said Tuesday: “I never talked to Bill again.”

How was Williams with Musselman? “Jimmy … he was fine,” Wilson said. “He got along with everybody.”

Wilson paused and said: “Remember, Bill also coached us. Jimmy came in from St. Petersburg JC and he was an amazing player. We had a great team, played this great defense, and Bill decided he wanted a shutout. Wanted us to hold the other team to zero.

“We were playing some overmatched team, and they hadn’t scored, and then Jimmy fouled some guy in the corner as he was making a shot. So, it was 29-5 at halftime, and Bill made Jimmy go around the locker room and apologize to the other players for costing them a shutout.

“Jimmy could shake off that craziness. Not all of us could.”

Williams coached the Gophers for 11 games after a rape allegation against three players in Madison, Wis., in January 1986. Dutcher quit when the Gophers decided to forfeit the next game. The players were later acquitted.

Clem Haskins was brought in as the next coach. There were multiple assistant jobs for Williams after that. Quite a few colleges wanted a recruiter who could land players such as Mychal Thompson, Darryl Mitchell, Osborne Lockhart, Tommy Davis, etc.

Williams was never married. His nephew Charles Forehand had been a contact for friends such as Wilson in recent times.

“He had done so much in his life, been through so much. … My uncle was a giant among men to me,” Forehand said Tuesday.