Column: Chase Williams leads St. Bernard’s return for its first football game since 2021

From the football field at St. Bernard High in Playa del Rey, you can watch one jumbo jet after another taking off from LAX with a burst of engine thrust so loud that it feels like the ground is about to shake.

“You get used to it,� senior receiver Chase Williams said.

No teenager has demonstrated more skills to adjust and adapt to his environment than Williams. He showed up at St. Bernard in the fall of 2021 as the pandemic was ending. He wanted to be a multisport athlete playing football and baseball. He was welcomed with the news St. Bernard was dropping its football program after an exodus of players following the resignation of coach Manuel Douglas in the spring.

As the son of College Football Hall of Famer David Williams, a star receiver at Illinois and in the NFL, Chase decided to focus on baseball, becoming a starting center fielder as a freshman. Each year he was told St. Bernard would restart the football program. Twice the school hired new coaches. But nothing happened in 2021, 2022 or 2023.

“It’s traumatizing,� he said.

Last year the new school president, Casey Yeazel, a former principal at St. John Bosco, made a commitment to Williams.

“Chase, we’re going to have a football team. I promise,� Yeazel told him.

“Honestly, I didn’t believe him,� Williams said. “But it’s happening.�

Yeazel hired former Dorsey coach Charles Mincy. The program has close to 30 players and opens the season Friday night at Littlerock in the Antelope Valley.

Chase Williams has a 3.96 GPA and finally gets to play football at St. Bernard.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

“I’m excited,� said Williams, who hasn’t played football since he was a seventh-grader in 2019. “The hitting doesn’t faze me. My father prepared me a long time ago. You get the itch and now you have to go for it. Now it’s on us. Now it’s on the players and coaching staff to give people a show and prove something because we haven’t had a football team for three years.�

No one knows how talented Williams is in football, but there’s plenty of evidence he might be a keeper.

“He’s really good,� Mincy said.

Williams is 6 feet and 175 pounds, has a 3.96 grade-point average and said his father long ago taught him how to catch passes.

“If they get me the ball, I’ll do something with it,� he said.

He’s a shining example of the kind of student-athlete the new St. Bernard wants to attract. Besides a new president, the school has a new principal, new athletic director and other new coaches. Enrollment has dropped below 200, but the superintendent for Catholic Schools in Los Angeles has given marching orders to Yeazel to get St. Bernard back on track.

“It’s a jewel. We’ve got great kids,� Yeazel said.

St. Bernard soon will be surrounded by top athletic facilities through Lulu’s Place, a $150-million athletic and educational complex under construction nearby. It is hoped that will help lead to more students enrolling.

Williams is the go-to student at St. Bernard. Besides being an all-league center fielder — and an example for brother Brady, a highly regarded freshman baseball player — he was the announcer for the girls’ flag football team, and the theater teacher has been lobbying for him to show off his outgoing personality.

What kind of football season St. Bernard will have remains uncertain.

“We’ll do some smoke and mirrors to get things rolling,� Mincy said.

The video board that has stood largely unused for three years is supposed to be working when St. Bernard plays its first home game on Sept. 6.

“Everyone is excited,� Williams said. “My dad is finally going to get to see his son do his thing on the football field.�

Williams has no regrets showing loyalty to St. Bernard and staying for four years despite three with no football team.

“Patience is key,� he said. “But it’s easy to be patient when your environment is great. There’s nothing pushing you to leave because the education and school are great.�