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<H1 ALIGN=CENTER><font color="#3333FF">Behind the Scenes</FONT> </H1>

<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#FF8000"><I>Team Chaplain Chette Williams
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<P>Chette Williams wasn't the nicest kid on the team. It was 1983, and head football coach Pat Dye had almost had enough of the linebacker from Winston, Georgia.
<P>"He was about ready to kick me off the team," Williams said. "I was a bad kid."
<P>But something happened that changed his life then and still affects him now.
<P>"I was in one of my teammates' dorm rooms on the third floor of Sewell Hall," Williams recalls. "That was when I asked the Lord to come into my life."
<P>Williams felt like a different person from then on.
<P>"My life changed, and eventually Coach Dye and I became good friends," Williams said.
<P>These days, Williams, now the team chaplain for the Auburn football team, gives spiritual guidance to young student-athletes, many in the same position he was in 16 years ago. Sometimes he sees a twinkle of his old self in the eyes of an 18-year-old sitting across from him. His job is to try to help a young person grow out of that.
<P>"Sometimes you see a kid who has physically got it together, but mentally and spiritually, he's not where he's at physically," Williams said. "And when you see that same kid later with all three working, it's a great feeling."
Williams offers individual counseling for student-athletes in need of spiritual guidance, or maybe just someone to talk to about their problems.
<P>"Some of the kids that I go one-on-one with are kids who at one point have accepted Christ into their lives, but need guidance on how to live a Christian life," Williams said. "And for some kids, it may not be a spiritual problem. It may be a problem at home or problem with school or some sort of personal problem. I'm here to give them the best advice I can."
<P>After graduating from Auburn in 1983, Williams returned home to Winston, which is also the hometown of former Auburn running back Stacy Danley, and began working as a manager at a local plumbing company. But that wasn't his calling, and he felt it.
<P>"I was working as an associate minister at my home church on the side, and the more I started doing things there the more I realized that may be what the Lord wanted me to do," Williams said.
<P>Williams became a licensed minister in 1987, was ordained in 1988, and went on to seminary school in 1990 at New Orleans Southern Baptist Presbyterian.  Williams received his Master's of Divinity in 1993. While in New Orleans, Williams met his future wife, Lakeva, who was playing basketball at Southern University.  Williams left "The Big Easy" and found himself in Spartanburg, S.C., where he founded Impact Ministries, an urban outreach ministry for inner-city kids in the Spartanburg area. Williams established the Super Saturday Sunday School program, where he and a group of volunteer men went into housing projects and picked up grade-school aged kids and brought them to a central location for games, food, and a Sunday School lesson. Williams said it was much needed for some of the kids.
<P>"We would feed and feed and feed those kids," Williams said. "We would fill them up, because for some of them it would be their only meal of the day."
<P>Impact Ministries grew by leaps and bounds under Williams' overseeing, and it was tough to leave when Williams received a call to be Auburn's team chaplain this year.
<P>"At first, we had mixed emotions," Williams said. "But I started praying and my wife started praying and we started receiving signs that this may be where God wants us to be."
<P>Williams said it was when he started to see the solidity of Impact Ministries and the fact that it could thrive without him was when he decided to come back to Auburn.
<P>Now, Williams and his family are back on the Plains and loving every minute of it. He has two daughters, Lauren, 3, and Caitlyn, 2, and he and his wife are expecting a boy in March.
<P>In addition to being the team chaplain, Williams also coordinates the Fellowship of Christian Athletes program, which meets weekly.
<P>A typical day for Williams involves individual meetings with players and coaches as well as doing a devotional for University employees and coaches. He leads a team devotional for the players before each game, and is on the sidelines at games to offer support for his players.
<P>Williams' support and offerings are ones that, if had been available when he played at Auburn, may have made him a different person today.

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	<H1 ALIGN=CENTER><font color="#3333FF">Behind the Scenes</FONT> </H1>

	<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><FONT COLOR="#FF8000"><I>Team Chaplain Chette Williams
	</I></FONT></H3>
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	<P>Chette Williams wasn't the nicest kid on the team. It was 1983, and head football coach Pat Dye had almost had enough of the linebacker from Winston, Georgia.
	<P>"He was about ready to kick me off the team," Williams said. "I was a bad kid."
	<P>But something happened that changed his life then and still affects him now.
	<P>"I was in one of my teammates' dorm rooms on the third floor of Sewell Hall," Williams recalls. "That was when I asked the Lord to come into my life."
	<P>Williams felt like a different person from then on.
	<P>"My life changed, and eventually Coach Dye and I became good friends," Williams said.
	<P>These days, Williams, now the team chaplain for the Auburn football team, gives spiritual guidance to young student-athletes, many in the same position he was in 16 years ago. Sometimes he sees a twinkle of his old self in the eyes of an 18-year-old sitting across from him. His job is to try to help a young person grow out of that.
	<P>"Sometimes you see a kid who has physically got it together, but mentally and spiritually, he's not where he's at physically," Williams said. "And when you see that same kid later with all three working, it's a great feeling."
	Williams offers individual counseling for student-athletes in need of spiritual guidance, or maybe just someone to talk to about their problems.
	<P>"Some of the kids that I go one-on-one with are kids who at one point have accepted Christ into their lives, but need guidance on how to live a Christian life," Williams said. "And for some kids, it may not be a spiritual problem. It may be a problem at home or problem with school or some sort of personal problem. I'm here to give them the best advice I can."
	<P>After graduating from Auburn in 1983, Williams returned home to Winston, which is also the hometown of former Auburn running back Stacy Danley, and began working as a manager at a local plumbing company. But that wasn't his calling, and he felt it.
	<P>"I was working as an associate minister at my home church on the side, and the more I started doing things there the more I realized that may be what the Lord wanted me to do," Williams said.
	<P>Williams became a licensed minister in 1987, was ordained in 1988, and went on to seminary school in 1990 at New Orleans Southern Baptist Presbyterian. Williams received his Master's of Divinity in 1993. While in New Orleans, Williams met his future wife, Lakeva, who was playing basketball at Southern University. Williams left "The Big Easy" and found himself in Spartanburg, S.C., where he founded Impact Ministries, an urban outreach ministry for inner-city kids in the Spartanburg area. Williams established the Super Saturday Sunday School program, where he and a group of volunteer men went into housing projects and picked up grade-school aged kids and brought them to a central location for games, food, and a Sunday School lesson. Williams said it was much needed for some of the kids.
	<P>"We would feed and feed and feed those kids," Williams said. "We would fill them up, because for some of them it would be their only meal of the day."
	<P>Impact Ministries grew by leaps and bounds under Williams' overseeing, and it was tough to leave when Williams received a call to be Auburn's team chaplain this year.
	<P>"At first, we had mixed emotions," Williams said. "But I started praying and my wife started praying and we started receiving signs that this may be where God wants us to be."
	<P>Williams said it was when he started to see the solidity of Impact Ministries and the fact that it could thrive without him was when he decided to come back to Auburn.
	<P>Now, Williams and his family are back on the Plains and loving every minute of it. He has two daughters, Lauren, 3, and Caitlyn, 2, and he and his wife are expecting a boy in March.
	<P>In addition to being the team chaplain, Williams also coordinates the Fellowship of Christian Athletes program, which meets weekly.
	<P>A typical day for Williams involves individual meetings with players and coaches as well as doing a devotional for University employees and coaches. He leads a team devotional for the players before each game, and is on the sidelines at games to offer support for his players.
	<P>Williams' support and offerings are ones that, if had been available when he played at Auburn, may have made him a different person today.

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	<P ALIGN=CENTER><I>© 1999 Auburn Network, Inc.</I></P>

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