Marshall Rams Football Head Coach shares grieving journey after loss of newborn daughter.
SAN ANTONIO — The following story is the most emotional interview I’ve done in my professional broadcast career. And the message is powerful with this story being essentially a three act play. I told my friends that watched the video version to have some tissues handy. Who knows. You might even feel those emotions after reading the story.
‘She was someone we always prayed for,’ said Martha Williams. ‘Even before we had Luca, we had her name picked out,’ she added. ‘I was a cheer coach so I wanted a little girl.’
And before we get deep into that portion of the story we start in the summer when Martha’s husband, Tim, the head coach of Marshall Rams football shared some aspects of his life. ‘In 2021 we had an amazing run,’ said Coach Williams. ‘We went to the playoffs,’ he continued. ‘Full disclosure I wasn’t very happy. There was just something that wasn’t feeling very satisfied to me. I remember Coach Malesky over at O’Connor telling me you need to enjoy it, and I wasn’t enjoying it.’
Tim Williams life foundation has always been built on faith before anything else. He realized what he was looking for was right out in front. ‘I was putting my joy in the wrong spot to be very honest,’ he said. ‘I was giving more of myself to football and trying to find joy and giving less to God,’ he continued. ‘I found that if I put him first lots of things take care of themselves and you become a lot happier. I think over the last two years we haven’t had the best seasons, but I’ve had the most peace and I’ve felt that I’m in the right place and doing the right thing.’
There’s no doubt that life can be an unexpected journey, and recently the Williams family has had their faith tested like most of us could never imagine. The couple welcomed their second child last February, baby girl Camila. But she was born premature, at only twenty weeks. She died just hours after her birth. Martha shared with us the very difficult emotions of that day. ‘I think that’s the hardest thing to think about,’ she said, crying. ‘You don’t want it to be real,’ she continued. ‘I remember yelling at the doctors asking them to please save her. The doctors were so sweet. It was hard because I didn’t want it to be real and they were asking me to hold her, and I didn’t want to.’
The grieving process, as you might imagine, still continues for Tim and Martha, and Coach Williams visited with us about the support they were looking for after Camila’s death. ‘There wasn’t a lot of help,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t really anyone to reach out to that had gone through that stuff,’ he continued. ‘I wanna create a foundation for father’s that have gone through this and for mother’s dealing with about how to grieve and overcome.’
Martha expressed the moment by moment just to be with her baby. ‘Tim always reminds me that God is taking care of her and that there is nobody better to take care of her than him.’ Coach Williams added to that thought as well. ‘I said Martha the only ‘why’ is because God wanted her called home,’ he said. ‘And that’s hard,’ he continued, crying. ‘What beats all that is the peace of knowing that she’s with our Lord and Savior and that one day we’ll get to hold her again and that we’ll get to see her and tell her we love her. From the world perspective she died. We believe that she’s alive.’