October 31, 2007

Opportunity exciting one for Williams
Breakers owner/GM aims to offer entertainment, sense of community via new team.
By Dave Werstine, Staff writer

LAKEWOOD - A lot of times, it's just as important who you know as what you know.

In the mid-1980s, Carl Williams - after his college basketball career was over and he was a well-to-do waterbed salesman - kept in shape by going up to the Hollywood YMCA, slipping on his sneakers and playing a little hoops. Some of his pickup-game teammates included Hollywood movie stars like Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington.

Today, his Rolodex is stockpiled with names and numbers of some of the movie and music industry's biggest stars.

"They were just relationships that developed," said Williams, who got out of the waterbed business and into show business, marketing various celebrity basketball games around the country and becoming a business manager for talent in the sports and entertainment field.

That path has led him to his latest endeavor as owner and general manager of Long Beach's newest sports entity, the Long Beach Breakers of the American Basketball Association.

The Breakers will play a 37-game season, 18 of those at Long Beach City College, beginning with the season opener Nov. 10 at the Pasadena Push followed by their home opener Nov. 18 against the Hawaii Hurricanes. The

"I'm an entertainer," said Williams, which is a big reason why the Breakers' home games will be played at LBCC instead of somewhere bigger, like the Walter Pyramid. "People have asked, `Why not the Long Beach State Pyramid?' I like things jam-packed. If we get 2,000-3,000, a good crowd (in a small gym like LBCC's as compared to a bigger facility like the Pyramid), it'll be jam-packed. It'll be happening and will create a buzz."

Williams' road to the Breakers began at Cypress High, where he played on the basketball team. After graduating in 1980, he spent a year at the Air Force Academy before finishing up his playing career and his degree in communications at Cal State Fullerton.

Out of college, he took a job as a waterbed salesman and began rubbing shoulders with Hollywood stars. Along with his brother Alex, Williams was asked to put on a celebrity basketball game for former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson. That's when everything began to come together.

"It was a domino effect," he said. "Things went so well (with the celebrity games he was putting on) that people started wanting me do some personal managing things for them."

But after several years running his agency, Sports and Entertainment, out of Seal Beach, that got a bit old and he wanted a change.

"To be honest, I was getting tired of babysitting," he said. "Some clients just wore me out. I had to get out and make a change."

And one day almost a couple of years ago, he received a call from a "good friend," Hollywood producer and co-basketball team owner Larry Abramson, about the ABA's Hollywood Fame needing a general manager for the 2006-07 season. The team was also owned by a variety of sports and Hollywood stars, like Nick Lachey, Stacy Keibler, Brady Anderson and Kyle Boller.

Williams, 45, who resides in San Pedro, took the job, but after one season the team went defunct.

"Last year really opened my eyes to a whole new element. I was surprised by how good players are," he said. "You see some players in the NBA and wonder, `How is this guy there?' I see some of these (ABA) guys and ask, `How are they not there?"'

So when ABA co-founder and chairman Joe Newman asked Williams about bringing the ABA back to Long Beach - the Jam played at the Pyramid for two years, winning the title in 2003-04 before shutting down operations after the following season - it was kind of any easy choice to say yes.

"It's a great concept. There's a ton of potential," Williams said of the league. Plus, "Long Beach is like my neighborhood."

Since purchasing the franchise in April, Williams has been working non-stop to bring an entertaining game and atmosphere to fans. And he wants the Breakers to become a fabric of Long Beach and surrounding cities.

The team's slogan is "Where the community owns the team." He plans on doing community/charity work on a monthly basis over the entire year, not just during the ABA season.

Also, children under 13 get a free pass into all home games as part of the plan.

"There are lots of great people in this town," Williams said. "I really want everybody to feel they own the team, be part of the team. We are going to do a lot of community-related things. I want to create an avenue where everybody wins. That's why the slogan is there."