Tag: Trayveon Williams

Bengals’ Trayveon Williams brings fresh perspective to adjunct professor role at Texas A&M

Trayveon Williams will juggle his Bengals responsibilities while teaching an NIL class at Texas A&M.

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Cincinnati Bengals running back Trayveon Williams made a name for himself at the collegiate and pro level for his on-field versatility.

He’s flexing that same versatility off the field soon at Texas A&M University School of Law in a manner beneficial to student athletes and the student body as a whole, too.

Williams will serve as an adjunct professor and co-teach a name, image and likeness (NIL) athlete advocacy class alongside Alex Sinatra, a sports attorney and sports business consultant, a tandem that started as a joke made via tweet before coming to fruition.

Appearing on Sinatra’s “Your Potential for Everything” podcast, Williams explained why starting programs like this at a collegiate level are useful, to the point of potentially spreading beyond just Texas A&M to the national level:

“…with the direction NIL is going, and obviously now that athletes can capitalize off their name, image and likeness…it has to be someone who represents them, it has to be someone who understands the ins and outs when it comes down to constructing contracts and doing all the little minute details…”

Sinatra explained the importance of the course:

“It’s vitally important to teach future athlete advocates, agents, and attorneys how to best represent their athlete clients. Zealous advocacy is vital, but too often athletes aren’t given a say in how they are represented. By having a former college athlete and current professional athlete co-teach the class with me, we will begin to construct a system where both athletes and advocates best know how to interact and support each other. We will be shaping a whole new generation of informed advocates and inform athletes so the sports industry as a whole is elevated to a more human level. Athletes are humans first.”

Williams said having walked the path of a student athlete who juggled early iterations of NIL will benefit students, including those non-student athletes with a general interest who could discover more about the emerging field.

“I know me personally, I was a college athlete before. I was a student-athlete. I understand how important that name, image and likeness is,” Williams said about adapting to this new role once mere back-and-forths about overseeing a class went from hypothetical to reality. “Now that college athletes are currently in the system dealing with that and these are real-life actual things they have to deal with today, I feel like it’s extremely important and extremely beneficial for students, for anyone who takes this class, that having a professional athlete and a collegiate athlete that was in that system, not even like it was ten years ago, it was just recently. … I’m all about any way that I can help give back.

“This course could completely push them in a different direction. They might want to become a sports agent or anything along those lines, so I’m excited with where this course can go.”

Of course, Williams remains in the mix at running back for the Bengals alongside the likes of Chris Evans and Samaje Perine behind starter Joe Mixon. His unexpected role as a professor at Texas A&M is one of his many off-field pursuits he’ll seek to balance.

“That’s something I want to build my brand on, being more than an athlete. Obviously, I can’t play football forever,” Williams said. “You have to start building those foundations for the avenue after football and this is another opportunity to do that. Obviously, I’m an entrepreneur as well, professional athlete at the same time, but this is another opportunity that is honestly something that I didn’t even know I would be interested in.

“It’s being able to juggle all those things, it comes down to time management.”

It’s anyone’s guess how many NFL players also manage to serve as an adjunct law professor in their spare time. But Williams, similar to how he sought out creases en route to school records for single-season all-purpose yards and single-season rushing yards before a successful pro career, figures to juggle the new responsibilities just fine thanks to a unique perspective that helps him give back to students.

Williams takes up his co-teaching role with Sinatra when the class opens in Spring of 2023.

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