Oct. 6, 2017
AUBURN, Ala. ÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃƒÆ'¢'¬" Family can mean different things to different people. For some, it's the people you grew up with, the people who raised you or the ones you raised. For others, it's relatives or maybe even close friends. There's also the network of people who attended the same college as you, and the people at Auburn know that family better than anybody.
For senior linebacker Tre' Williams, it's all the above.
"The word family, it basically means having each other's back," Williams said. "It doesn't matter where that person comes from. It doesn't matter that person's background or what that person's been through. You still have to love that person like he or she is your true personal family."
There have been a lot of people who have had Williams' back over the years. His grandmother, Loverette Vaughn, said it best when she said "It takes a village to raise a child."
Williams has that village around him.
'IMMEDIATE' FAMILY
Every Saturday in the fall when Auburn has a home game, there's a good chance you might run into Williams' clan. They're hard to miss. They typically wear matching t-shirts or matching "Tre Williams" jerseys to the game. It's a tradition that his mother, Charleste McMillian, started when Williams was back in little league playing at Eight Mile Park in Mobile.
"Before he got to Auburn, I was like, 'Oh, we're going to get some shirts made,'" McMillian said. "People are going to know that Tre' has a supportive family, that he's not just out on his own, thrown to the wolves. We wanted to let them know that we're here with him.
"Every weekend, he looks up in those stands to make sure we're there. After he sees [us], he's good."
McMillian even made the long trip up to Missouri with some of her friends earlier this season despite the fact she knew Williams wasn't going to play. It was worth it, however, just to see the look on her son's face when he looked up and spotted her in the crowd.
That bond has always been there. Growing up, it was just the two of them. Williams was an only child, and McMillian was a single parent doing her best to raise him.
The village still existed, though. Williams lived with his grandparents for a period of time. His uncle, Terrence Vaughn, would make the trip from Montgomery to Mobile to watch his nephew play sports. There were even times when Vaughn, who started college when Williams was born, would take his nephew to Montgomery and watch over him for a week.
To Williams, his aunts and uncles were like his parents. His cousins like siblings. It might not have been an "immediate" family by definition, but it was his immediate family.
"We just had a really close family, and everybody felt responsible for everybody," Williams said. "Everybody held each other accountable, and that's why when you see my family, they're always around each other. They're always here. My support system is great. Because that's how they were raised, and that's how we were raised."
That's why you see such a big group supporting Williams at every Auburn game. There are aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents that accompany his mother and his stepfather ÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃƒÆ'¢'¬" McMillian remarried when Williams was in high school ÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃƒÆ'¢'¬" but if you're in the family, Williams is going to find a way for you come to his game.
Vaughn has probably seen more of Williams' games than most. He's only missed two since Williams began playing at Auburn in 2014. One was on a Thursday night, and he had to coach his team that Thursday. And the other, the Missouri game earlier this season, he missed because of the birth of his second child.
Williams didn't hold it against him. The week before the game when the baby was born, he went straight to the hospital in Montgomery as soon as he got done with class.
"Little stuff like that, that's big in my eyes," Vaughn said. "That he would take time out of his busy schedule and drive 45 minutes for a 30-minute visit. I teach elementary school, and for him to come to my school and talk to the kids, take a picture here, take a picture there, he's the prototype of an athlete that you would want on your team."
THICKER THAN BLOOD
Family isn't always defined by blood. It's true that Williams was an only child. It's true he didn't have any brothers. But in his eyes, that only lasted until he met Deshaun Davis and Devin Adams while growing up in the same neighborhood. The three hung out together all the time. They played sports together. Their mothers took turns taking care of them.
They were essentially one big family.
"Devin is an only child as well, so me and him together, we're like 'we might as well not consider ourselves an only child anymore because we've got each other,'" Williams said. "Of course, Deshaun has got two brothers and a sister, but we kind of adopted him from that family into our little personal family."
On the football field, you might have already thought Williams and Davis were brothers. In little league, they would compete each game to see who could make the hardest hit. Davis is still miffed about one game, in particular, where he and Williams were on kick coverage together, and he helped clear the way for Williams to level the return man.
"He got up so crunk and the crowd was going crazy for him, and I was just looking at him mad," Davis said. "He tried to jump up with me and celebrate with me, and I kind of just walked away from him because we used to have that competition."
That competition still exists today, fifteen years later. The only difference is that Williams, Davis and Adams are playing for Auburn and not for the Eight Mile Little Giants. Though all three took different routes growing up, they all ended up back together in college.
And the bond between them? It's still the same to this day.
"If you see Deshaun, you'll see me," Williams said. "If you see Devin, you'll see Deshaun. We're always around each other outside of football.
"When Devin got here, we were like 'That's crazy.' That doesn't really happen. That's so rare that us three are actually in college together. And me and Deshaun are blessed enough to even be on the field together in college. It's just a story within itself."
Davis, who rooms with Williams, admits that he doesn't get upset or jealous anymore when he sees his best friend make a play or make a big hit. He just wants to see Williams succeed. If Williams has a big game where he makes 10 tackles or sacks the quarterback, Davis is the first one to tell him 'good job' or 'great game.'
"We grew up together," Davis said. "So when we're on the field together, it's not looking at him like [he's] an Auburn Tiger teammate. That's my brother. That's a guy I grew up with. Blood wouldn't make us any closer. My mom is his mom. His mom is my mom.
"So just to look to the side of me and see him playing with me ÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃƒÆ'¢'¬" him making plays or him flying to the ball and doing things that he's been doing for our defense ÃÆ'Æ'¢ÃƒÆ'¢'¬" it's a great feeling inside of me, knowing how we came up together."
THE AUBURN FAMILY
When Williams was a sophomore in high school, his uncle took him and one of his friends on an unofficial visit to Auburn just to hang out. That day, Williams told his uncle, "This is where I want to be." It was just the feel he got when he was there.
Williams didn't pull the trigger on a commitment just yet. He was still receiving interest and scholarship offers from just about every major school in the country. But when that time came for him to make a decision and choose the school he would attend the next four years, that feeling was still there. Auburn was family to him.
"It made a lot of sense to me," Williams said. "I truly understood that aspect of Auburn because of the family that I came from. If I can get that same feeling away from my personal family, then that's something special.
"So when I came on visits and things like that, I had that feeling. I didn't need my mom around. I didn't need my uncle around. I could just be around the coaches and the players and still have that same feeling. I felt like these people have got my back like I got theirs, and I'm not even here yet. They don't even know where I'm going to go, but they still treated me as if I'm an Auburn Tiger. I didn't have that feeling all these other places."
It made the decision easier for McMillian, too. She saw how the family was treated not just by the coaches, but by the counselors, the mentors, the fans, and she knew that was the right place for her son. She didn't have to worry about sending him off to college.
Four-and-a-half years have gone by since Williams signed his national letter of intent, and pretty soon, he will play his final game at Auburn and graduate.
"Sometimes, I get kind of teary-eyed," McMillian said. "They're sending me this stuff for graduation, and he's putting stuff on [social media] like, 'my last first fall scrimmage,' and I was like, 'Oh I can't believe it.' It went by so fast. It was like he just got there."
Looking back, there are no regrets for Williams. He's become a leader on the defense, one of the better linebackers in the SEC, and more important than anything, he's found a family at Auburn that will stay with him forever.
"You're always a part of it," Williams said. "It doesn't matter your experiences here at Auburn. Just for me personally, when they say in the creed, 'I believe in Auburn and love it,' like I truly believe in Auburn and love it. Auburn has done a lot for me, and it's taught me a lot of things. If I could go back and make the decision again, I'd do the same thing.
"For everybody who is in the Auburn family, much love."
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf