Long before he was a coveted NFL Draft prospect, lanky 16-year-old Joejuan Williams walked through the Father Ryan High School parking lot. He flashed his signature smile but slouched in pants that sagged suspiciously below his waist.

He quickly caught the eye of assistant football coach Corey Phillips, who seized on the issue of sagging pants like they were personal fouls.

“I was raised on the no-sagging rule, and all my players know that’s my big rule,” Phillips said. “So when Joejuan saw me looking at him, he immediately pulled his pants up. But, geez, they were way too short.”

Williams’ family, living in Nashville public housing projects, could not afford new clothes over Christmas break even though he had hit a growth spurt. Through the years, his single mom, Stephanie Robertson, worked multiple jobs to provide for Joejuan and his older brother Deontre. But the family had still been evicted from numerous homes, and his mother lost parental custody of her children.

“But I don’t like to go into detail about that,” said Williams, a Vanderbilt cornerback and projected early-round NFL draft pick. “I just know that my mom is my superhero. She sacrificed and struggled for us, but she smiled through all of it."

In a documentary produced by Vanderbilt, Robertson said, "My kids saw a lot. They saw a whole lot that they weren't supposed to see at that age. That hurts me every day when I still think about it. It took me a few years to get out of that cycle. Now I'm back on track (and) it's been 10 or 11 years now. So I'm happy for that."

Trying to out-play the father he barely knew

Williams lived with his grandmother for part of his childhood, often moving into her house after evictions to his mother's home. With his family repaired over the years, Williams speaks glowingly of his mom.

“When I laugh and smile through tough times, that’s my mom in me," Williams said. "She is where I get everything.”

Williams’ football dream started at 5 years old, when he was determined to outshine the feats of his father, whom he barely knew.

"He was rarely around, but I always heard stories about him," said Williams in the documentary without providing his father's name. "He was one of the best players in the state back in the day, in the state of Tennessee. And growing up, I was like, 'I can play his sports and still be better than him.'

"That's really what drove me to play at the age of 5. I wanted to be better than him. I wanted to be better than him in everything I did in life."

Williams also was fueled by a love of the game and a hope to escape poverty. It took him from being one of the nation’s top high school recruits to the SEC and finally the NFL Draft, which is being held in his hometown.

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An average inner-city kid in a private school

When Williams transitioned from Smithson Craighead, a metro Nashville public middle school, to Father Ryan, a private Catholic school, he wasn’t the charismatic, ultra-athletic player that he has become. He enrolled there to play football and was given need-based financial aid. But Williams was an average player on the field and self-conscious in the student body.

“I was from the inner city where schools were mostly minorities, but Father Ryan was predominantly white. I would see things that I really liked at Father Ryan or at my friend’s crib, and then I’d go home and see something that I really didn’t like,” Williams said.

“But that culture shock was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It motivated me to make it to the NFL, to be successful in life and financially stable.”

Phillips, one of his mentors, said Williams had an awkward adjustment but a strong will to succeed.

“It was a white private school with a lot of things that Joejuan had never seen or done before. Everything was a first for him,” Phillips said. “But what I loved on the football field was he didn’t back down from the older kids. He competed with them, and I loved it.”

SEC offers before becoming a starter

But the NFL was still a fantasy. Even a college scholarship was not guaranteed. When Williams finished his sophomore season at Father Ryan, he hadn’t even earned a starting position.

“He didn’t stand out. He wasn’t a ballyhooed kid,” former Father Ryan coach Bruce Lussier said. “He was just a skinny kid with the rest of them. But that spring he came out of nowhere.”

In May 2014, Tennessee offered Williams a football scholarship. Ole Miss did the same the next day, and Kentucky followed four days later. Then LSU, Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State.

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By the time Williams returned for his junior year, more than half the SEC and some of the best programs in the Big Ten wanted him. And he wasn’t even a starter yet for Father Ryan.

“I remember a conversation with a friend of mine who was in the UT athletic department back then,” Lussier said. “I asked him, ‘Why is a kid like Joejuan getting Power Five offers, and he hasn’t even been on the field much for us?’”

The non-binding scholarship offers were based on Williams’ projected size and ability. He was growing athletic and tall, a rare combination for cornerbacks at his age. And in high school prospect camps that summer, college coaches recognized the early stages of Williams’ development.

Top college coaches were estimating that he would turn into an elite player. If they were right, their foot would be in the door to land Williams. If they were wrong, they would pull the scholarship offer and give it to another player.

Cortland Finnegan saw NFL in Williams’ future

There actually were hints of Williams’ rise before that crazy summer of recruiting.

There was the big win at McCallie in Williams’ sophomore season, when a rash of injuries to older teammates pushed him into the lineup. Williams delivered a series of hard hits, broke up three passes and returned an interception for a touchdown that caught his coach by surprise.

“I can see it in my mind now,” Lussier said. “He picked it off on the far sideline, made a lot of people miss, cut across the field and ran it back. You could suddenly see the athleticism.”

Later that spring, Phillips, Father Ryan’s defensive coordinator, was working out his friend, Cortland Finnegan, a former cornerback for the Tennessee Titans, as Williams watched from the sideline. Finnegan told Williams to put his cleats on and join him in some intense NFL-caliber defensive back drills.

An hour later, an impressed Finnegan told Phillips, “Corey, whatever you do, don’t mess that kid up. He’s going to be a pro.”

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Williams was going to LSU, switched to Vanderbilt

Williams had an all-state junior season at Father Ryan and then transferred to Hendersonville. He was ruled ineligible to play his senior season because of a TSSAA zoning rule that requires players transferring from a private school to a public school to live outside the private school's territory to be eligible immediately. Williams' home was not located outside of a 20-mile radius around Father Ryan.

Williams planned to graduate a semester early and enroll in college in January 2016. But with 33 scholarship offers from the best programs in college football, he was uncertain where he would go.

Williams said he was a “soft commitment” to LSU and planned to publicly pledge to the Tigers on his 18th birthday on Dec. 6, 2015. But one final conversation with Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason changed his mind.

Mason didn’t pressure him to pick the Commodores. Instead, he asked about Williams’ family, and they talked about Richard Sherman, the NFL All-Pro cornerback who Mason coached at Stanford. Sherman, at 6-foot-3, was a uniquely tall and athletic cornerback, just like the kind Williams, now 6-foot-4, aspired to be in the NFL one day.

“Other coaches told Joejuan that he would play corner for them, but they were really going to move him to safety,” Mason said. “But I could show him tangible proof that I could develop his size and skillset to get him where he wanted to be.”

And it didn’t hurt that Williams’ mother, brother, uncle and grandmother were in Nashville. He would’ve excelled at another school in another state, but they could not afford to travel to many of those games.

“I take pride in where I come from,” said Williams,who will sit in the NFL Draft green room with other top prospects for Friday's second and third rounds. “I grew up in Nashville, went to Father Ryan in Nashville, played at Vanderbilt in Nashville, and now getting drafted in Nashville. That’s special.

“I represent the 6-1-5 wherever I go. And I’ve always tried to put on for this city, for my family and friends.”

Williams ready for NFL, leaning on mom’s example

Williams faced another big decision in December. After his All-SEC performance this past season, he opted to leave Vanderbilt early for the NFL Draft.

“It’s hard to tell a kid that comes from absolutely nothing to come back to school,” said Phillips, now an assistant recruiting coordinator at Vanderbilt.

Williams was on the SEC academic honor roll all three years at Vanderbilt, and he plans to graduate in May 2020 with an economics degree, following his NFL rookie season. He has taken two independent studies courses this semester while juggling NFL workouts and media appearances.

Williams is about to accomplish an improbable dream by making the NFL and providing financially for his family. But climbing out of public housing, eviction notices and meager times, he simply can’t stop dreaming bigger.

“I don’t want to just get to the NFL,” he said. “I want to be great. I want to win a Super Bowl and be in the Hall of Fame. Whether it’s good times or really tough times, if your mentality is positive, your outcome will be positive.

“You just keep smiling. My mom taught me that."

Reach Adam Sparks at asparks@tennessean.com and on Twitter @AdamSparks.

Joejuan Williams

Age: 21

Position: Cornerback

Hero: Mother

Playing football since: 5 years old

Favorite football moment: Beating rival Tennessee three straight times, longest winning streak in series in 92 years

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