5 More Quirky Facts About Buzz Williams

Tomorrow, your No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats take on the Texas A&M Aggies in College Station. Texas A&M was a preseason Top 15 team but has struggled as of late, losing four of its last six, including its first two SEC games. The Aggies lost to LSU by 15 (!) in College Station last Saturday and at No. 16 Auburn by 11 on Tuesday night. That said, you know Buzz Williams will have his team ready to try to pull off the upset tomorrow in a rowdy Reed Arena.

This is Buzz’s fifth season at Texas A&M, so by now, you probably know he’s a quirky character. Ahead of the Aggies’ trip to Rupp Arena last year, I shared 10 interesting facts about Buzz. As we look forward to tomorrow, here’s a refresher and a few new gems.

1. He still loves (and overuses) emojis

Buzz loves emojis, to the point that his birthday tweets for players or staff featuring emojis have become a tradition. But it’s not just birthdays he celebrates with the emoji keyboard. I felt like a 21st-century Robert Langdon trying to decipher his social media feed today.

It is a tradition in @aggiembk that if we wake up 🌞in a 🏨 🛌 the 🚎 takes us to the nearest 🏋🏿 before 💒➕🍳🥓🥞

Thank you to @Marriott for allowing our #getBETTER group to use their facility prior to the 🏀game tonight 🌙 pic.twitter.com/EiFRNve7Fq

— Buzz Williams (@TeamCoachBuzz) January 9, 2024

Did the Aggies take a trolley to their hotel in Auburn?

Happy 57th Birthday🎂to 1️⃣ of my favorites in the 🌎: Coach Gep

I 🙏🏾this is ur best 📆 year yet

👁🩷U>💦💧in the 🌊🌊

In our 4️⃣th yr. riding on Team 🚌 #1️⃣ together, I am very grateful you are here, ➕humbled by the impact you’ve had on so many lives, especially mine!👊🏽 pic.twitter.com/SDin3it2MY

— Buzz Williams (@TeamCoachBuzz) December 25, 2023

“I love you more than water in the ocean”? I got nothing.

2. Socks for Charges

How much does Buzz value charges? Every player who draws one is gifted a pair of socks. So far, sophomore forward Solomon Washington leads the team in charges/socks, with five.

3. Still wearing inspirational t-shirts

Another Buzz tradition is wearing an inspirational quote t-shirt under his dress shirt, vest, and tie. Over the course of the season, he gives out 12 quote shirts to his players and staff that carry a life lesson or story. So far this season, he’s worn three:

• “ACTION Weighs More Than Inaction”
• “If You See It, Say It”
• “Time Either Promotes or Exposes Who You Are”

I wonder which one he’ll wear tomorrow?

4. He also did the “One Word” New Year’s exercise with his team

John Calipari and Buzz Williams have the same taste in literature. Remember “The Energy Bus,” the inspirational book Calipari had Willie Cauley-Stein (and other players) read several years ago? The author, Jon Gordon, also wrote a book titled “One Word,” which includes an exercise in which you pick a word to live by each year instead of a New Year’s Resolution.

Calipari did the exercise with his team last week, choosing the word “joy” for his 2024. Williams also did it with his squad, using Tetris as an example of building on success and asking the players to write their words on cassette tape keychains.

In keeping with the tradition @JonGordon11 taught me…

For 2024, what word will help you focus on just one @Tetris_Official block at a time? 🕹️🟨🟪🟩🟧🟦🟥

What word recharges 🔋 your willpower, similar to the effect of playing your favorite song over and over on a cassette… pic.twitter.com/qZmMQLsSdl

— Buzz Williams (@TeamCoachBuzz) January 1, 2024

Williams, who also gives lectures on Texas A&M’s campus, keeps a list of all the books he reads, tweeting it out at the end of each year. Here is the 2023 list:

Thankful for all the authors✍️ and the work involved with every book 📚 I was able to complete in 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣.

I look forward to what 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣4️⃣ brings and the opportunity to keep evolving 📈through the wisdom 🧠 of others! pic.twitter.com/uUE49DQJ6n

— Buzz Williams (@TeamCoachBuzz) January 2, 2024

Glad to see Wright Thompson’s “Pappyland” on there.

5. He was a Guest DJ on Kenny Chesney’s Sirius XM Channel

If you were flipping through Sirius XM radio on your way to visit family Thanksgiving week, you may have heard Buzz Williams. Buzz served as a guest DJ on Kenny Chesney’s “No Shoes Radio,” spinning songs and sharing stories about his friendship with the famous country singer.

“When Kenny asked me to do it…they told me that I could pick 16 songs, and four of them had to be Kenny’s. And so I love music, and so I was like, well, that won’t be hard. And you can pick from any genre. You can do anything. You can introduce the song however you want, et cetera, et cetera.

“Filtering out which songs to play was a lot more difficult than I anticipated. And because he’s my friend and because I’ll never do it again, and I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, I wanted to do good, so I wanted to say the right words. I was a little too wordy, as you guys know, and the microphone they have is like, 1 million times better than the ones that are in this room, so it picks up literally everything.”

Here’s a clip of it from Jillian Cardarelli, one of the artists he featured.

@jcardarelli

Thank you Buzz Williams for spinning #CountrySide on Kenny Chesney’s No Shoes Radio on @siriusxm this week!! @Kenny Chesney #countrymusic #noshoesradio #kennychesney #siriusxm

♬ original sound – Jillian Cardarelli

Incredibly honored & thankful 🙏 to be this week’s Guest DJ 💽 on @KennyChesney’s No Shoes Radio. 🏴‍☠️🎸 @NoShoesNation‼️ Come spend an hour with me on @noshoesradio, telling stories and listening to some of my favorite songs 🎶, everyday 📅 this week, on https://t.co/B9Fq4aIMEL… pic.twitter.com/c8Oc4386IC

— Buzz Williams (@TeamCoachBuzz) November 20, 2023

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