Road to Duke
William Franklin Avery Jr. was born on August 8, 1979, in Augusta, Georgia. He grew up in a modest household — his mother lived just above the poverty line and worked at a power plant. Basketball was the way out, and Avery was gifted enough to make it the way through.
At Westside High School in Augusta, Avery played alongside a teammate named Ricky Moore. Together they led Westside to the 1995 Georgia state championship — the school’s first title in boys’ basketball. Moore would go on to play at the University of Connecticut. The two childhood teammates from Augusta would meet again on the biggest stage in college basketball, but they would be wearing different jerseys.
To bolster his academic standing and national recruiting profile, Avery transferred to Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, for his senior year. Oak Hill was the factory — the place where elite prospects went to sharpen their games and get their grades in order. Coach K had initial concerns about Avery’s academics during his junior year at Westside, but Oak Hill smoothed the path. By the time he graduated, Avery was a third-team Parade All-American and one of the most highly regarded point guards in the Class of 1997.
At Duke
Avery played two seasons at Duke, 1997–98 and 1998–99. As a freshman, he backed up Steve Wojciechowski and averaged 8.7 points and 2.5 assists in 35 games, learning the position behind one of the toughest defenders in Duke history. The 1997–98 team went 32–4 and reached the Elite Eight before falling to Kentucky.
Sophomore year was the masterpiece. With Wojciechowski graduated, Avery stepped into the starting point guard role alongside Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon, Shane Battier, Chris Carrawell, and Corey Maggette. He averaged 14.9 points and 5.0 assists per game, shot 49.5 percent from the field and 41.1 percent from three, and was named Second Team All-ACC. Duke went 37–2 — winning 32 straight games, going 16–0 in ACC play, and sweeping both the ACC regular-season and tournament championships. It was one of the most dominant seasons in college basketball history.
In the NCAA Tournament, Avery quarterbacked Duke through five wins to reach the national championship game against the University of Connecticut. On the other side of the floor was his old Westside High School teammate, Ricky Moore — the kid he had won a state championship with in Augusta. Moore’s defense on the perimeter was a key factor as UConn won 77–74, ending Duke’s dream of a perfect season. Two boys from Augusta, one title game, different jerseys, different outcomes.
Then came the decision that changed everything. Avery, along with Elton Brand (who won National Player of the Year) and Corey Maggette, left Duke for the NBA Draft. They were among the first players to leave early under Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K had badly wanted Avery to return for his junior season to help groom incoming freshman Jason Williams. Avery had reportedly promised he would come back. He didn’t. The departure — and the circumstances around it — created a rift that would take two decades to fully heal.
After Duke
The Minnesota Timberwolves selected Avery with the 14th overall pick in the 1999 NBA Draft. His three seasons in Minnesota were difficult: he appeared in 142 games but averaged just 2.7 points and 1.4 assists per game, never establishing himself as a rotation player. After his rookie contract expired in 2002, no NBA team signed him.
What followed was a decade-long odyssey through international basketball. Avery played in France for Strasbourg, in Israel for Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem, in Ukraine for Azovmash Mariupol, in Greece for Makedonikos and Panionios Athens, and in Poland for Energa Czarni Slupsk. Eight countries, eight different leagues, eight different languages and cultures. He was a first-round pick playing in gymnasiums where the fans threw things and the paychecks were uncertain. He kept playing because basketball was all he had ever known, the thing that had taken him out of Augusta.
Avery retired from professional basketball in 2012 after his stint in Poland. He returned to Evans, Georgia — a suburb of Augusta — and founded the Will Avery Basketball Academy, a youth training program inspired in part by his daughter Yasmine’s growing interest in the game. The academy helped over twenty young players secure college scholarships in the years after its founding.
Where Is He Now
In the fall of 2019, twenty years after he had left Duke as a sophomore, William Avery did something extraordinary: he came back. At age forty, he re-enrolled at Duke University to complete his undergraduate degree in African American studies. While earning his degree, he assisted the basketball team in various capacities, reconnecting with the program he had left so abruptly two decades earlier. He graduated in 2023.
Following his graduation, Avery was hired as an assistant coach on Jon Scheyer’s staff at Duke — his first full-time college coaching position. The kid from Augusta who had been one of the first to leave early was now on the bench in Cameron Indoor Stadium, teaching the next generation of Blue Devils. He works alongside Chris Carrawell, his teammate from the 1999 championship game team, completing a Brotherhood circle that stretches across a quarter century.
William Avery was born in Augusta, Georgia, and raised by a mother who worked at a power plant. He played alongside Ricky Moore at Westside High School and won a state championship. He went to Oak Hill Academy to get his grades right and then to Duke to play for Coach K. He backed up Wojciechowski as a freshman and then became the starting point guard on a team that went 37–2 and reached the national championship game — where his old Augusta teammate was guarding him in a UConn jersey. He left Duke early, one of the first to do so under Krzyzewski, and the departure created a wound that took years to close. He was drafted 14th overall and played three seasons in the NBA. He played professional basketball in eight countries across a decade. He retired, went home to Augusta, and started a basketball academy inspired by his daughter. And then, at age forty, he came back to Duke and finished what he had started. He graduated in 2023 with a degree in African American studies. He is now an assistant coach under Jon Scheyer, on the same bench where Coach K once sat, in the same arena where he once played point guard on one of the greatest teams in Duke history. The Brotherhood doesn’t just welcome you back. Sometimes it waits twenty years for you to be ready. William Avery was ready. And Duke was still there.