Jill Williams-Wilks helps Tigers succeed on and off the field
June 2008
Jill Williams-Wilks is Clemson’s secret weapon in the effort to recruit and keep football talent.
As administrative assistant for recruiting in the office of Andy Johnston, director of football operations, she lives and breathes the game all year round.
“Football season never ends for us, and Andy is wonderful to work with,” says Williams-Wilks, who oversees mailings to prospective recruits, coordinates campus visits and serves as an informal adviser and sounding board for players adjusting to the rigors of big-time college football.
With a dazzling smile and the same enthusiasm that fueled her four years as cheerleader at Seneca High School, Williams-Wilks handles multiple responsibilities while making lasting friendships.
The hectic schedule begins in January with the annual football banquet – to look back on the previous season – and Clemson’s big recruiting weekend – to focus on the future.
Recruiting is a delicate dance dictated by a hefty manual of rules and regulations. Williams-Wilks voluntarily submitted to the NCAA certification test on compliance, which is required annually for all coaches.
This dedication to compliance seems to have rubbed off on at least two of her former student workers, Stephanie Ellison and Brad Woody, who are now assistant athletic directors in Clemson’s compliance services office.
After Clemson’s recruiting weekend, the remaining winter months and spring are spent nailing down commitments. Four sessions of the Tommy Bowden Football Camp for grades 2-12 take place in June. Then the ladies football clinic is planned for July. When August rolls around, its time for pre-season camp, and the real thing starts soon after.
Williams-Wilks attends all home games to coordinate the activities of visiting prospects. Since Clemson eliminated student recruiting hostesses, she has coerced her friends and co-workers to help welcome these visitors, who view a presentation and have a meal before watching the game.
Williams-Wilks joined the university staff in 1976, the same year her Seneca High School classmate Bennie Cunningham was drafted out of Clemson by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
She worked in positions involving academic recruiting, such as the PEER program for minority students in the College of Engineering and Science, before moving to the football office 15 years ago.
Her husband, Dennis Wilks, a former CUPD captain, retired in 1998 with 28 years of service. He is currently an administrator with the Anderson Head Start program.
She has no children of her own, but hundreds of guys – both active and former players – call her “Mom” or “Miss Jill.” Her bulletin board is covered with baby pictures and her mail is filled with wedding invitations.
“I’m into my second generation of Clemson players,” says Williams-Wilks, citing such father-son pairs as Braxton K. Williams and Braxton Williams and Lester Brown and Corey Brown, who runs track for Clemson.
“When former players are coming back to Clemson, they call to make sure I’m going to be there,” she says. “Current players drop by all the time to ask ‘where do I go for this and that,’ and to ask me to explain some detail to their mothers.”
By the time they leave Clemson, they are fast friends with this “Jill of all trades.”
The 2008 football season kicks off on Aug. 30 when the Tigers meet the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Georgia Dome. But in the meantime, YaYa and PaPa Wilks will spend every possible weekend in Atlanta with grandson Jaxon, their favorite Tiger Cub, who will be 2 in September.
Read more about Clemson football and the Clemson vs. Alabama game to be nationally televised in prime time.
Beth Jarrard, public information director for internal communications, can be reached at Inside@clemson.edu or (864) 656-3860.