City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Former Villanova great and NBA guard Alvin Williams is headed back to the school that launched his basketball career, Germantown Academy.

The Fort Washington, Pa. school's head coach and athletic director, Jim Fenerty, has added Williams to the staff as a varsity assistant coach, though his role will apparently be much larger than just assisting Fenerty.

Williams, according to Fenerty, will also serve as the overseer of player development from grades 6-12 at the Inter-Academic League school, where he'll certainly bolster the on-court reputation of a program that's also had plenty of success in the Inter-Ac and beyond under its longtime head coach.

"Everybody thinks I'm a good recruiter," Fenerty said, "but this is my best recruit ever."

This isn't the first time that Fenerty and Williams will be together at GA. When Fenerty arrived at the school in 1989, Williams was entering his freshman year at the school.

He would go on to be a four-year starter for the Patriots, helping Fenerty to his first two league titles in 1991-92 and 1992-93. He then played all four years at Villanova, breaking out as a senior in 1996-97 to average 17.2 ppg, 5.0 rpg and 3.8 apg.

Williams was drafted in the second round of the 1997 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers, and went on to a 10-year professional career mostly spent with the Toronto Raptors (1998-2006) before finishing out his career with the Los Angeles Clippers a year later.

"I think Alvin's just a class act, straight across the board," Fenerty said, "and it's just great to have him back with us."

Germantown Academy is coming off of its second consecutive Inter-Ac title, as the Patriots went 22-6 overall (9-1 Inter-Ac) to finish a game ahead of Episcopal Academy. They'll be led this year by senior point guard Devon Goodman and junior wings Evan-Eric Longino and Kyle McClosky.