KU's Scholar Athlete

For Harrison, The Awards Roll In

Scholar athlete Harrison Williams 2SCHOOL: Trinity GRADE: 12
SPORT: Basketball
ACADEMICS: Harrison is the class valedictorian, scored 31 on the ACT, is a 4.0 student and will study chemical engineering at Asbury University.
PARENTS: Ami & Greg

The end-of-the-year award ceremony at Trinity Christian Academy can sound like an echo chamber.

“And the next award goes to Harrison Williams. And the next… And the next.”

Harrison, the valedictorian of the 2016 class and an All-State basketball player, graduated with a 4.0 GPA and a 98.5 average in all classes for his entire four-year career.

He also earned the top award in six of eight classes this year, a feat he nearly matched all four years.

Does winning so much provoke jealously among peers? “No,” said Harrison. “Just a few good jokes.”

And it’s not like Harrison competed against a weak field. This year’s 30 graduates earned $5 million in scholarship offers.

Harrison, who scored 31 on the ACT, earned a 75% tuition scholarship from Asbury, where he will study chemical engineering.

Under a 3-2 program, Harrison will move to UK after three years and earn his master’s after five.

Harrison will be well prepared for college. He took the most rigorous schedule that Trinity offers, and, like all Trinity students, wrote and defended a thesis as a junior and senior.

A year ago, his topic was the age of the Earth. As a senior, he debated the constitutionality of a government prohibition on preaching against homosexuality.

For that paper, he read the Federalist Papers, the writings of Founding Fathers Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton, and Canadian jurisprudence.

Harrison is a voracious reader – Charles Dickens is his favorite novelist and C.S. Lewis his favorite philosopher.

“Harrison is self-disciplined, a time manager, a reverse procrastinator and a hard worker,” his mother Ami said.

Need more proof? Consider his

singing career. Born into a musical family, Harrison could not “carry a tune with a bucket,” his father Greg said.

He then took piano lessons and in high school joined the school singing group. As a senior, he performed his first solo and earned the Lexington Singers award for the school.

He displayed the same work ethic on the basketball court. At 6-foot-4, he led the team in scoring, rebounding and played all five positions on the floor.

Team MVP as a junior and senior, he led Trinity to the Kentucky Christian Athletic Conference state tournament. His 950 points rank fifth all-time at Trinity.

“Harrison realizes that practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect,” said Greg, a Trinity assistant coach.

“Harrison does things the correct way.”

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