Zion Williamson battles through “A Whole Hot-Girl Summer, ” and now in “Soldier-Mode.”
Zions preseason performance has been astonishing. C.J. McCollum affirmed Williamson’s discipline behind the scenes. “I do feel like he has matured a lot. I feel like he has an understanding of what’s expected of him and exactly what he needs to do consistently in order to be available,” McCollum went on to say, “I think he understands how good he can be when he’s doing the little things. Playing the game is the easiest thing for him. He’s a gamer, the lights are on, he likes to show off — and really just show how good he is at the sport.
Zion Lateef Williamson (born July 6, 2000) is an American professional basketball player for the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He plays the power forward position. Following a freshman-year stint with the Duke Blue Devils, Williamson was selected by the Pelicans with the first overall pick in the 2019 NBA draft. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 2020. In 2021, he became the fourth youngest NBA player to be selected to an All-Star game.
Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, Williamson attended Spartanburg Day School, where he was a consensus five-star recruit and was ranked among the top five players in the 2018 class. He led his team to three straight state championships and earned South Carolina Mr. Basketball recognition in his senior season. Williamson also left high school as a McDonald’s All-American, runner-up for Mr. Basketball USA, and USA Today All-USA first team honoree. In high school, he drew national attention for his slam dunks.
In his freshman and only season with Duke, Williamson was named ACC Player of the Year, ACC Athlete of the Year and ACC Rookie of the Year. He set the single-game school scoring record for freshmen in January 2019, claimed ACC Rookie of the Week accolades five times, earned AP Player of the Year, Sporting News College Player of the Year recognition, and won the Wayman Tisdale Award.
The USBWA Wayman Tisdale Award is Presented to the nation’s top Division I men’s freshman. The USBWA has chosen a national freshman of the year since the 1988-89 season when LSU’s Chris Jackson was the recipient. Other previous winners of the award include Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd and Chris Webber. The 2017-18 season marks the eighth year the award has been named in Wayman Tisdale’s honor.
The late Wayman Tisdale was a three-time USBWA All-American at the University of Oklahoma. Following a stint on the 1984 U.S. Olympic basketball team, he played 12 seasons in the NBA before retiring in 1997 to focus on a blossoming jazz music career. In March 2007, he was diagnosed with cancer and, following a courageous and difficult battle that included the amputation of his right leg in 2008, he passed away in May 2009.
TISDALE, WAYMAN (1964–2009).
Wayman Tisdale, born June 9, 1964, in Tulsa and a graduate of Tulsa Washington High School, dominated college basketball for three seasons as a University of Oklahoma Sooner. The son of Rev. Louis Tisdale, a Tulsa-area preacher, Wayman Tisdale also became an accomplished jazz music bassist and played twelve seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A member of one of Oklahoma’s greatest high school basketball classes, 1982, which also included Mark Price, Steve Hale, and Anthony Bowie, Tisdale electrified the university’s Lloyd Noble Center with his left-handed jump shot and his ever-present smile. He was the first collegiate player to earn first team All-American honors in his first three years. He averaged more than twenty-four points per game over his Oklahoma career and scored a Sooner-record sixty-one points in a game versus the University of Texas-San Antonio in 1983. After his junior year Tisdale left college as the school’s career leader in points (2,661), rebounds (1,048) field goals (1,077), field-goal percentage (.578), free throws (507), and free-throw attempts (767). He departed holding seventeen Oklahoma records and nine Big Eight Conference records. The University of Oklahoma retired Tisdale’s number (23) in 1997, making him the school’s first athlete, in any sport, to receive this honor.
In 1984 Tisdale played for the Bobby Knight–coached U.S. Olympic basketball team that won a gold medal in Los Angeles. In 1985 the Indiana Pacers selected Tisdale second, behind Patrick Ewing, in the NBA draft. Although he played on poor teams, none with a winning record in his first nine years, he had statistically solid seasons. In 1989 the Pacers traded Tisdale to the Sacramento Kings, and he averaged 22.3 points per game his first Kings season. The following year he injured a tendon and played in only thirty-three games. In 1994 he signed as a free agent with the Phoenix Suns and played on a winning team for the first time. Tisdale recorded a career scoring average of 15.3 points a game.
Finishing his career with Suns, he retired in 1998 to focus on a career in music. He retired on the same day his jazz album, Decisions, went on sale. He had previously released two other jazz albums, Power Forward and In the Zone, with his band, The Fifth Quarter. In 1988 former first lady Nancy Reagan honored him for his work against youth drug and alcohol abuse. He began a company, Big Time Sports Apparel, which specialized in practice gear and sports clothing. At the end of the twentieth century Tisdale and his wife, Regina, lived in Tulsa with their four children.
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PACE TULSA 