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Texas congressman Williams honored with Bobby Bragan award

November 2, 2016

Roger Williams will likely be remembered more for his political career than athletic career.

But the congressman from the 25th district of Texas, which stretches from Tarrant County in the north to Hays County in the south, had a distinguished baseball career at TCU.

And Williams added another baseball accolade Wednesday night as the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation's 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

"It's huge for me because Bobby Bragan was one of my dad's best friends and he was a dear friend to me as a young man growing up," said Williams, who splits his time between Weatherford, Austin and our nation's capital. "I'm excited. I think Bobby is excited I'm getting the award."

Williams was an outfielder for the Frogs from 1968-71, being named to the school's All-Decade team for the 1960s and earning All-Southwest Conference honors in 1968. The Frogs went a combined 81-51 during his college career.

Williams pursued a professional career after being drafted by the Atlanta Braves, but an injury ended those dreams. So he returned to TCU as an assistant coach under Frank Windegger in 1974-75 and took over as head coach for a season in 1976.

The Frogs went 22-24 and 8-15 in the Southwest Conference under Williams in '76.

"Baseball, to me, is the American game," Williams said. "It teaches you so much. It's a game that if you fail 70 percent of the time, you go to the Hall of Fame. No other industry can you do that.

"It's a family sport, too. People all have baseball stories."

Williams also weighed in on the contentious presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Williams himself is up for re-election and feels he'll be successful, but his race is nothing close to the one for the highest office in the country.

"From a political standpoint, Americans in my mind have definite choices — one choice is to have bigger government, the other choice is to have the government lesser and in the hands of the people," Williams said. "That's what they're going to decide on Tuesday."