It's all coming up Larry Williams these days, as the West Point prop led his team to a D1A championship, won the Rugby Scholz Award as the best player in the country, was named captain for West Point for next year, and now is part of the USA U23 team going to the Corendon Summer Tour in the Netherlands.
He won't get a big head, though. One of the reasons Williams won the Scholz Award is that he's pretty humble, and he's pretty team-focused.
"The key to creating a team ethos in such a short amount of time is actually connecting and bonding with one another," Williams told Goff Rugby Report. "As soon as we all touch down in Amsterdam, we have got to focus on each other so we can build that baseline of trust within each other. I think if we are able to do that quickly and build trust right away, I think that everything else will really fall in to place as it should. Everyone has been selected for a reason and it is because they work hard and are talented at what they do."
The U23 team is made up almost entire of college players, although there are a couple of MLR academy players in there, too. There's a strong military academy presence, which is something we haven't always seen. For Williams, there's that mix of players he knows and players he doesn't.
"I have played with and against a lot of these guys, I think I am most excited to reconnect with my teammates KoiKoi Nelligan and Collin Grosse, who I thought I would never get the opportunity to play with again," Williams said. "It will be very exciting. I am also excited to play with Doyle Hedgepeth from Queens University. We have grown close over the last couple of years and it will be exciting to work with him. I honestly excited have everyone as a teammate, and I am excited to work with this top tier coaching staff. I know that everyone is going to show up ready to work and I love that out of a group of people."
