A birth that created a row
Former Oiler recalls firestorm after he chose wife over game
Scot Williams had heard bits and pieces of the story when he was younger.
His grandparents would mention what his dad had given up the day he was born. Family friends would talk around the moment. He knew he and his dad had made headlines when he was a day old.
He just didn’t know the whole story.
So when he was about 10, he and his dad were fishing one day and he said he wanted to know more about it. David Williams took a deep breath and started to tell him the story. Well, stories. This wasn’t a simple answer. Remember Babygate?
Scot Cooper Williams came into this world Oct. 16, 1993 and was the center of a firestorm 24 hours later. His father was an offensive tackle for the Oilers, had missed the team’s game in New England to be with his wife when he was born.
The coaches were livid. Some of his teammates were upset and angry. A combination of timing of Scot’s birth, fog in New England and David not being able to catch the last flight out of Houston that Saturday night forced David to make a decision that cost him a $111,000 fine.
The story went viral — 1990s style. National headlines. Network television. Talk shows
around the country. Everybody had an opinion, especially when the macho culture of pro football collided with changing times around the country (the Family and Medical Leave Act had passed in February 1993).
“It took me a while,” David said of the media frenzy, “to get over it.”
This week marked the 25th anniversary of Babygate and the men in the center of that moment can chuckle a little about it now.
David, who played through 1995 with the Oilers and finished his career with the New York Jets, and his wife Debi have moved to North Carolina to be closer to her parents. At 52, he has had two hip replacements, two back surgeries and is awaiting the first of two shoulder surgeries.
Scot, an economics major, celebrated his 25th birthday Tuesday. He’s taking four classes and will graduate from University of North Texas in December with his bachelor’s degree in business administration.
David laughs as he recounts that fishing day and telling Scot about the fine from his $2 million annual salary.
“He said, ‘That’s a lot of money you left there, Dad. I would have played in the game. I wouldn’t have watched me be born.’ ”
David paused. “I told him, one day you’ll change your mind about that.”
He has.
The 9-pound, 15-ounce, 24-inch long center of attention 25 years ago is now 6-6, 235 pounds and looking toward his career and the future. The only time he gets teased is when he’s with his dad’s former teammates — “So this is the expensive kid” — and everyone has a good laugh.
“I have so much respect for him,” Scot said. “It really speaks to his character that he wanted to be there for my mom and me in that moment. That’s pretty special. I didn’t really appreciate it at the time. But looking back on it now, it’s really a bigger deal than I thought. Nowadays it happens all the time and nobody cares. Back then, it was taboo.”
David hasn’t talked much about his decision and the maelstrom that followed in decades, but eh opened up about it last week.
It was the first of a series of strange things that happened during the turbulent 1993 season. What followed a 1-4 start and Babygate was a string of 11 wins, the December suicide of defensive tackle Jeff Alm after his best friend fell to his death from Alm’s car and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan punching offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride on the sideline during the Jan. 2 regular-season finale at the Astrodome against the Jets.
And that Super Bowl run? It ended in the AFC divisional playoffs when Kansas City rallied to beat the Oilers 28-20 in what would be the franchise’s final postseason game in Houston.
One crazy, fractious year, indeed. But we digress.
‘It was nerve-wracking’
A quarter of a century ago, then-27-year-old David, who wasn’t one to miss a game, just wanted to be with his wife when she delivered. Debi had suffered a miscarriage the year before after a tubal pregnancy and he wasn’t leaving her side. They had planned to have a C-section the Monday after the game, but Scot had a mind of his own and Debi went into labor at 4 a.m. Saturday, and David missed the team charter.
David figured Scot would be born, mom and baby would get checked out, and he’d have time to catch the last flight to Boston on Saturday night.
But that didn’t happen. While Debi was in labor, David was on the delivery room phone with coaches and team officials. Time was running out to catch that last flight and the conversation wasn’t pretty.
“It was hard on her at the time. ... She could hear them screaming over the phone at me,” David said. “Finally, the doctor just yanked the phone plug, took the phone off the wall and said ‘We’re not taking any more calls.’ ”
Scot didn’t arrive until almost 6:25 p.m., and by then, it was too late for Williams to catch the 6:54 p.m. flight from either airport.
“Even if I had left the second after he was born, I still never would have made that plane,” he said. “It was nerve-wracking for me. I’d never been through anything like that. It was tough.”
He said teammates Mike Munchak and Bruce Matthews tried to arrange a private plane through a third party, but when David left the hospital around 11:30 p.m., he hadn’t heard back.
“I had been up with Deb since 4 o’clock that morning and going through that emotional roller coaster of getting screamed at and yelled at by coaches and general manager as I’m in the delivery room,” he said. “My wife’s giving birth and I’m getting screamed at. Man, it isn’t supposed to feel like this.”
David went home, showered and was sound asleep when the person called back. The voice on the other end of the phone said there were no guarantees he would get to the stadium in time. The pilot might be able to get him into one of the New York airports, but then he would have to drive to Foxborough, Mass.
“They were diverting planes everywhere,” David said. “At that point, I said, if he can’t fly me to Boston, just tell him to forget it. I made that decision on my own. I was absolutely exhausted.” He paused.
“I was just (thinking), ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to be fired.’ I knew it. I just knew I was going to be without a job the next day. It was crazy, but that was the decision I made.”
The Oilers won the game 28-14 with left tackle Kevin Donnalley moving to David’s spot at right tackle and rookie Brad Hopkins getting his first start on the left side. But after the game, players and coaches weren’t shy with their opinions about Williams missing the game. The loudest was line coach Bob Young.
“He doesn’t make $125,000 a week to stay home and watch television,” Young told reporters. “They ought to suspend him for a week, maybe two. Everybody wants to be with his wife, but that’s like if World War II was going on and you said, ‘I can’t go fly. My wife’s having a baby.’ You have to go to work, especially when you get paid like that.”
No issues in locker room
After the game, offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said he couldn’t put into words how disappointed he was and then-general manager Mike Holovak said Williams would lose a game check ($125,000) and face a fine or possible suspension.
Driving into the practice facility Monday, talk shows were buzzing. David knew some teammates would support his decision, others wouldn’t. He was ready to listen. He was ready for the swarm of reporters as well.
And about being fired? It never came up.
“I figured if I wasn’t going to be there, I’d know soon enough when I walked into the door,” he said. “No one said anything, I went about my day and I started working out. I just moved on. It was like ‘It’s time to play football.’ That whole thing’s behind and let’s go play.”
And they did, winning 11 straight and surviving those other distracting events along the way.
“I’ve never been through anything like that year,” David said.
The controversy over Babygate lingered in the media for quite a while, but not in the Oilers’ locker room where there were only conversations, not more harsh words.
“At first, everybody was putting their two cents in,” David said. “I think it calmed down fairly quickly. Once we’re on the field, we’re concentrating on games. We’re not worrying about that anymore.
“I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what was being said around the country. My focus was going out and performing. We had a job to do.”
And as the Oilers started stacking together wins, the focus shifted to football and the team turning the season around.
“As a ballplayer, there are all kinds of distractions and you just have to focus on what you’re doing and going out there and playing your best,” David said. “You can’t sit back and listen to all the noise. You have to focus on each and every game you’re getting ready to play.”
Ironically, the spring after that season ended, Williams announced Debi was pregnant again. But there wouldn’t be a Babygate II. Daughter Kara, now 23, was due the week after the Super Bowl.
Scot can recount all those Babygate moments as well, but really doesn’t. He didn’t follow his dad into football. Because Scot was wiry growing up, he played golf and was good enough that, by sixth grade, he was the No. 5 player on the First Academy Leesburg (Fla.) high school team. As a senior, he played No. 1. Now, he just plays for fun — he played with his dad in Munchak’s charity event here in 2017 — and shoots in the 70s.
He’ll tell you he “came in with a bang” and quickly follows that up by saying people didn’t tease him growing up. Instead, they respected that his dad played in the NFL.
Famous birth family fodder
Scot is aware his name comes up every time someone googles his dad’s name. His girlfriend’s sister, in fact, did just that and found the stories about his dad missing the game when he was born.
“Wow, that’s pretty crazy,” he said. “They said it even got the spotlight away from Donald Trump’s daughter (Tiffany) being born (three days earlier).”
At the same time, he pushes it aside as old news and admits that if he faced the same decision his dad did 25 years ago, “I’d have to stay behind.”
Which brings us back that lazy day of fishing.
“I told him, when you get older, get married and decide to have children, you’ll understand that you want to be there to see the birth of your children,” David said. “It’s one of the greatest things you’ll ever witness in your life.”
And in this case, their story is the subject of one great on-going joke between the two of them.
“I always tell him, when you make your first million, I get about half of that,” David said with a laugh. “I have to factor in all the interest I lost.”
Scot shakes his head and chuckles, too.
“He always holds that one over my head.”
And always will.