The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Top WR finds secret to success
NEW HAVEN — Not long after his freshman season ended without him taking a single snap, Yale wide receiver Chris Williams-Lopez sought advice from one of the team’s most respected senior leaders.
Grant Wallace had recently concluded his career ranked fourth on Yale’s all-time receptions and receiving yardage lists. Williams-Lopez, understandably, wanted to emulate Wallace.
“How did you do it?” Williams-Lopez asked. “What’s your secret?”
Wallace was brutally honest. He told WilliamsLopez he wasn’t working hard enough, but that it wasn’t too late to turn things around. WilliamsLopez was slightly taken aback, but took the words to heart.
“I thought I had been working hard, but at the same time I knew there was more I could give,” Williams-Lopez said. “Grant’s like an older brother to me, and a lot of my success I credit to him. It was good to hear that from someone who’s had that kind of success in this league.”
In the three years since, Williams-Lopez transformed himself into a top receiver at Yale and in the Ivy League.
Despite having played only 17 career games, he is ninth on Yale’s career receptions list with 112. He’s been the main weapon in the passing attack this fall,
leading the Bulldogs with 37 receptions, 405 receiving yards and three touchdown catches.
Yale (5-1, 2-1) faces Columbia (6-0, 3-0) on Saturday at the Yale Bowl (1 p.m., SNY), its hopes for an Ivy League title at stake. A loss all but ends the Bulldogs chances.
The work ethic of Williams-Lopez is apparent on a daily basis.
“Every day in practice, he goes 100 mph,” Yale coach Tony Reno said. “You watched guys like Grant and Deon Randall in practice, they were like machines. I think he’s taken that from those guys.”
At Greater Atlanta Christian in Norcross, Georgia, Williams-Lopez was a top receiver on a team that finished as state runner-up. Several college programs were interested, but the choice came down to Yale and Princeton.
“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come here or go to Princeton,” Williams-Lopez said. “My mom, after visiting here, said ‘You can go anywhere you want — as long as it’s Yale.”
Reno, upon hearing the comment, cracked a smile.
“She’s a great lady,” he said.
Williams-Lopez’s freshman year on the bench wasn’t even close to the biggest obstacle he’s overcome since arriving in New Haven. During training camp as sophomore, he suffered a scary neck injury that forced him to be taken from the practice field in an ambulance.
Doctors cleared him to return after a month, and Williams-Lopez, with no varsity games under his belt, immediately became one of Yale’s go-to receivers. In only seven games, he led the team with 60 receptions for 576 yards, including 13-catch days against Brown and Harvard.
Injuries kept him out most of last season, too. Williams-Lopez, healthy and in peak form again, has caught at least five passes in five of six games. His best outing was a 10-catch, 146-yard game in a losing effort at Dartmouth.
Williams-Lopez ranks fifth in the Ivy League in receptions and receiving yards even though Yale has the league’s most successful run game. Reno says a combination of technique and athleticism sets him apart.
“He has the ability to not slow down, whether in a break-point or catching the football,” Reno said. “When the ball’s in the air, he has an extra gear to go get it. And he’s very smart. He understands space and where to position himself.”
Reflecting back on Wallace’s advice three years ago, and the specifics that got him to this point, Williams-Lopez embodies the team philosophy.
“Coach Reno has a saying: ‘There are no little things,’” Williams-Lopez said. “So whether it was waking up early to do film study, or staying on the field to catch more balls, it all builds up over time and you see better outcomes, eventually.”