Clarion Athletics

Marcess Williams, a talented an experienced collegiate basketball coach, begins his fifth season leading the men's basketball team at Clarion in the 2018-19 season.  Named head coach on October 7, 2014, Williams is only the 12th head basketball coach in Clarion history.

Williams has coached a number of talented players in his tenure as head coach of the Golden Eagles, including two All-PSAC West selections in Cameron Grumley and Rob Agurs.  Grumley finished his career 16th all-time in scoring at Clarion with 1,212 points, and was the NCAA statistical champion in free throw percentage in 2016-17.  Williams coached another 1,000-point scorer in BJ Andrews, who finished his career 13th with 1,285 points.

He has sent a number of players to the professional ranks as well.  In recent years, Agurs, Andrews and Tim Gill have all signed professional contracts to play basketball overseas.

In 2015-16, Williams coached the Golden Eagles to one of their best seasons in recent memory.  The team reached the PSAC Tournament for the first time since the 2009-10 season, upsetting Edinboro on the road in the opening round of the tournament before falling in the quarterfinals.

Clarion was dominant at home in 2015-16, posting a 10-3 record thanks to their fast-paced style of play.  The Golden Eagles ranked third in the PSAC with an average of 8.50 steals per game and were one of the best scoring defenses in the league, allowing just 72.6 points per game.

The coach at Penn State-Beaver for nine years, Williams is a native of New Brighton in Beaver County, a 1998 New Brighton High School graduate and a 2002 graduate of La Roche College. He came to Clarion after leading PSU-Beaver to an average of 17.6 wins per season in his nine years, including at least 20 victories in each of his last six seasons there.

Williams guided PSU-Beaver to the last six PSUAC Western Division titles (2009-14), and the Lions were also the PSUAC Champion in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In 2009, Penn State-Beaver finished as the USCAA Division 2 National runner-up and in 2011 the Lions finished ranked third in the final USCAA national rankings. In nine seasons, he coached six USCAA first-team All-Americans and led Penn St.-Beaver to a record of 158-99 (61.5 percent). He earned PSUAC Coach of the Year honors in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013 and was a Beaver County Hall of Fame Coach of the Year honoree three times from 2009-11.

In addition to his coaching duties at PSU-Beaver, Williams was also an Admissions Counselor at the school, a job in which he served as an adjunct professor for the campuses First Year Experience 16-week course as well as Coordinator of the Educational Opportunity Program for the Beaver Campus.

A 2002 graduate of La Roche College with a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice, Williams played four years for the Red Hawks under the late Scott Lang, a 1997 Clarion graduate who played basketball for the Golden Eagles. Lang also gave Williams his start in coaching as the assistant coach with La Roche from June 2003 until June 2005 helping the Red Hawks to the school's first Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) championship in 2004.

A standout player for La Roche, Williams is the fourth all-time leading scorer in La Roche history with 1,359 career points and the fifth all-time leading rebounder with 561 boards and was an all-conference performer from 1999-2002. He was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2013.

While at New Brighton, Williams earned All-Conference honors in basketball from 1995-1998 and was a key member of the Lions 1997 WPIAL Class AA runner-up squad.