On Wednesday, a day before his 42nd birthday, Williams paid with his job. Yale, which had undertaken an internal review to investigate Williams’s Rhodes scholarship assertion after an article in The New York Times raised (doubts) about its legitimacy, announced that the coach had resigned.
In a news release from the university, Williams said he had been (encouraged) to apply for a Rhodes scholarship while at Stanford, but never did so: “I considered the opportunity, sought advice, and was encouraged to apply by faculty (members) and my coach, Bill Walsh. But I did not apply.”
Williams’s story began to unravel shortly after Witt announced he would forgo the Rhodes interview to play in what is widely known as the Game. A Rhodes Scholarship Trust official, Elliot Gerson, its American (secretary), told The Times he had never heard of a candidate bypassing the final interview to play in an athletic event. Gerson has been overseeing the scholarships for more than three decades.
The Times then asked the Rhodes trust to check on Williams’s claim. After a thorough investigation, the trust (reported) that no one named Williams had even applied for a scholarship in 1991, 1992 or 1993. Asked about the trust’s findings later that day, Williams said: “I wasn’t trying to confuse anyone or make it sound different than it was. I was in the (preliminary) stages at Stanford and I had to decide, but the interview wasn’t official.”
The next day, Yale announced that it would investigate Williams’s claim and would not comment until its findings were completed.