Earl Williams will always remember his son's smile.
He tells of a time last summer when he and Corey, engineering '95, were driving to one of Corey's semi-pro soccer games in the New York-New Jersey area. He looked at his son and said with affectionate bemusement, "You're 22 years of age and your daddy's still following you around and watching you play soccer."
Corey said nothing. He simply looked at his father and smiled, with an expression that the elder Williams vividly recalls. "His smile and his eyes--I will never forget that. His eyes were so white, so pure," Earl Williams recalled in a telephone interview Tuesday night at his home in Randolph, NJ. "He didn't say a word. It was worth a million dollars to me."
Corey Thomas Williams was on his way home from a friend's house when he was killed in a car accident in Randolph sometime before 5 a.m. on Christmas Eve. He died instantly when his 1991 Eagle Talon hit a patch of ice and ran off an embankment into a tree. He is survived by his father Earl, 50, his mother Lorraine, 48, and his 17-year-old sister Amber, a high school senior who hopes to be a part of Duke's class of 2000.
Williams, who majored in mechanical engineering at the University, had recently been accepted to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where he planned to study orthopedic surgery or pursue clinical research. More than 1,000 people attended his funeral, held Dec. 28 at St. Mary's Abbey on the campus of The Delbarton School, the private, Catholic boys' school in Morris Township, NJ that was Williams' alma mater.
Several of those there said that the most touching moment of the service came after the funeral mass, when several of Williams' Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brothers and other close friends, holding each other and crying, gathered at the casket to share their memories of Corey.
"Those guys came up here in force," said Father Giles Hayes, headmaster of Delbarton. "The tremendous unity, love for Corey, love of life and faith they had--what a credit to Duke and to themselves these kids were." Those who attended the service estimated that about 200 University students were there.
His friends said that they will remember him as a role model and a warm, giving person.
Trinity senior Derek Jackson, president of Kappa Alpha Psi, called Williams "a paragon of how we tried to live our lives as fraternity brothers" and said, "He was the most giving and hard-working brother in our chapter last yearÉ. People were trying to understand why someone like that would be taken."
Claude Tellis, Trinity '95 and one of Williams' pledge brothers, remembered him as having "an enormous passion for life."
"What I respect him most for is that he was very non-judgmental of people, regardless of race, creed, religion, et cetera," Tellis added. "He had an enormous love for his family and respect for his father, something I think is rare in today's society."
Mike Sherman, engineering '95 and former president of the Society of Black Engineers, of which Williams was a member, recalled his friend as someone who always went out of his way to help people. As teaching assistants for a computer science class, Sherman and Williams spent a significant amount of time with students--and Williams, said Sherman, always seemed willing to give more, tutoring students "off the clock" even when he had his own work to do.
"He was the guy who would bring everybody up, even when everybody was down," said Sherman, who was also close to Williams' family, who used to put him up during the summer. "He'd be there with his smiling face to make everyone feel better."
Since graduation, Williams had been teaching physics and chemistry at Delbarton. A varsity soccer player at the University, he also coached the Delbarton middle-school soccer team to the county championship, which it had not won since 1986.
"He was really, really nice--I never saw a bad side to him," said Danny Pulaski, 13, who played for Williams. "He was just really nice to all the kids, and it really didn't matter how your soccer skills were--he would still try to develop you. He was just a really great guy."
Josh Maio, 14, a co-captain of the championship team, also spoke highly of his coach, recalling how Williams led 36 kids by himself for the first five games of the season until finally getting an assistant. He also said that Williams cared more about the kids than he did about winning, never hesitating to let almost everyone get playing time, no matter how important the game.
And Justin DiVenuta, 13, a team co-captain, said that even when members of the team were discouraged after badly losing the first two games of the season, "he was there for us, behind us 100 percent." And DiVenuta, like the other two players, could not recall a single time when their coach had yelled at them, even from the sidelines during games.
"He is definitely my role model, for sure," DiVenuta said.
Williams' professors also remembered him for his warmth. Donald Wright, associate professor of mechanical engineering and Williams' adviser for four years, said that in his 35 years at the University, he had seen few students so dedicated and conscientious. He recalled how Williams came into his office right before graduation just to say goodbye, something that Wright said was a small but special gesture that few students make.
"I'm devastated by his loss," Wright said. "He was the kind of student who makes me proud of Duke."
Lawrence Virgin, associate professor of mechanical engineering, worked with Williams on an independent study and played with him on the mechanical engineering soccer team. He spoke fondly of Williams as both a scholar and a person and told of how Williams called him last semester to ask about ideas for physics experiments, which he hoped would get his students at Delbarton more interested in the subject.
"What can you say? It's a tragic loss," Virgin said.
The Alumni Association of the New Jersey Medical School will administer a scholarship in Williams' name. His fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi, will also establish the Corey T. Williams Scholarship, to be awarded to an incoming University freshman according to criteria established by the fraternity. Donations can be sent to Box 96042, Durham, NC, 27708, care of the Corey T. Williams Scholarship Fund. Members of the fraternity also intend to hold a memorial service for him, although no date has been set.
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