Bengals running back Trayveon Williams’ new offseason job began as a joke.
It’s no joke: Williams will serve as an adjunct professor at Texas A&M’s School of Law next spring, co-teaching a class on name, image and likeness (NIL) law and athlete advocacy, alongside sports attorney and consultant Alex Sinatra.
Above The Law, a legal magazine, published an article this spring that included a joke about Williams running up Texas A&M’s law school rankings. The dean of the university’s law school then joked in a tweet that Williams was joining the law school as a next faculty recruit.
“I was like, is there another Trayveon Williams out here that played football at Texas A&M that’s basically using my name and going to be a professor without me knowing?” Williams said on Sinatra’s podcast, Your Potential for Everything.
Sinatra made it happen, believing an athlete involved in the class would prove invaluable. Williams accepted, knowing one day soon he will be in search of a second career.
Since the Bengals made him a sixth-round choice in 2019, Williams has played 26 games, mostly on special teams, and has 47 career touches.
“That’s something I want to build my brand on, being more than an athlete. Obviously, I can’t play football forever,” Williams said, via Chris Roling of USA Today. “You have to start building those foundations for the avenue after football, and this is another opportunity to do that. Obviously, I’m an entrepreneur as well, professional athlete at the same time, but this is another opportunity that is honestly something that I didn’t even know I would be interested in.
“It’s being able to juggle all those things, it comes down to time management.”