Nick Williams
Sapulpa High School
A graduate from the Class of 2016, coach Nick Williams was a cross country runner for Sapulpa High School as a student, now he’s coaching cross country and loving it. Williams would go on to run in college at Rogers State University in Claremore, Ok.
“I am teaching at Sapulpa Middle School. I am in my 4th year of teaching 6th grade science,” Williams said. “In the beginning it was a bit of an adjustment balancing both teaching and coaching. But I think with every year I have found ways to make it more effective on how to manage my time and balance both areas. Now going into my third year of coaching and fourth year of teaching, I think this has been the easiest transition into the beginning of the school year I have ever had.”
Williams was a Sports Management major in college, graduating during the COVID pandemic, which forced him to explore job opportunities elsewhere. As Williams said, “COVID happened, it shut down professional sports so there were not any opportunities to enter into any jobs.” Williams knew teaching and coaching were great options.
Williams comes from a family of coaches including his mother who is the head coach of the cross country teams at SHS.
“My whole life I have been around a great cross country and track program. Then going to college, I also received a lot of great inspiration from my college coaches at Rogers State University in Chris McCormick, Matt Kennedy, and Hunter Briggs,” said Williams.
Teaching middle school has its challenges, but Williams feels he connects well with the age group.
“I connect well with the middle school age group. I get to spend all day teaching middle school students in the classroom and then spend the afternoon coaching high school athletes. I also help out with our middle school and junior high athletes as we have a very large team, I love developing our younger athletes into loving the sport even more and helping them try and reach the goals they set for themselves,” said Williams.
Something which may surprise his students, Williams still competes in his free time.
“I still compete in races around the year. I make sure it does not interrupt with my coaching schedule because coaching comes first but I still train myself and race for a local running store called Big River Running Company in Utica Square. My main two races I plan on doing this fall are the Chile Pepper 10k in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the Williams Route 66 Half Marathon in November,” said Williams.
