You Asked For It, Dad Detroit's Jerome Williams is wearing his father out with his hustling play

One of these days Johnnie Williams Jr. is going to learn.
Eventually he is going to stop issuing motivational challenges to
his son Jerome, the gregarious 6'9", 206-pound Pistons forward
who wears his socks to his knees and calls himself the Junk Yard
Dog.

Last month Johnnie promised he would do 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups
and 100 jumping jacks daily for a month if Jerome pulled down 20
rebounds in a game. Just two weeks later Jerome grabbed a
career-high 21 in a victory over the Hornets. Earlier this season
the elder Williams had to lose 10 pounds when Jerome met his
challenge by averaging double figures in points and boards during
November. Last year Johnnie refused to get a haircut until Jerome
delivered a 15-rebound game, which he did after two months. "My
big mouth keeps getting me in trouble," says Johnnie, 49, an
electrical engineer from Silver Spring, Md. "Every time I throw
something out there, he meets the test."

While turning his father into Richard Simmons, the 26-year-old
Williams is shaping up as a contender for the Sixth Man Award. At
week's end he was averaging 9.2 points and 10.4 rebounds while
shooting 62.3% from the floor. He was also chasing double doubles
the way a junkyard dog goes after a hubcap thief. With 14 this
season, he has a chance to become the first Detroit player to
average double figures in points and rebounds since Bill Laimbeer
in 1987-88.

Though it has taken Williams four seasons to excel in the NBA,
he's been contributing to Detroit since the Pistons took him with
the 26th pick of the 1996 draft. Four years ago he and his older
brother, Johnnie III, formed a nonprofit organization called
Positive Shades of Black, dedicated to motivating kids in
Detroit's inner city. The organization teaches study habits and
life skills, such as how to write a resume and establish credit
and use it wisely, and it provides tickets to Pistons home games.
Some 30,000 kids have gone through the program.

Williams talks to the youngsters about his unlikely path to the
NBA: how he went unrecruited out of Magruder High in Rockville,
Md., as a 6'3" point guard; how he paid his own way to Montgomery
Junior College in Germantown, Md., for two years by taking an
$8-an-hour job at a medical supply company; how he was discovered
by Georgetown coaches at a weekly pickup game in Washington. "I
tell them it's O.K. to dream but to make sure you have an
education to fall back on," says Williams, who graduated from
Georgetown with a sociology degree.

Williams, a fan favorite in Detroit, has his own rooting section
at The Palace (the Dogg Pound), his own Web site (www.dadog.com)
and his own mascot, a Hoya-like bulldog who makes appearances at
area schools and hospitals. Still, he might not be the big dog
in his family for long. "All this dieting and exercise are
getting me back into shape," Johnnie says. "Pretty soon I'm
going to be able to take Jerome again in a game of one-on-one."

--Marty Burns

COLOR PHOTO: ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN/NBA PHOTOS