MARIETTA, Ga. -- At seven years old, the gift was evident.
It was the Fourth of July and the Williams family was in Rome, Ga., where Devon was playing baseball. They opted to stay for fireworks and when the boys began racing each other, Kendell joined in.
"I was like ‘I'm going to race,' so I took off my sandals," Kendell recalled. "I outran them all except for my brother. After that my parents signed me up for track. That's how it all got started."
Eleven years later, Kendell Williams stood a podium in Kell High School and through a teary-eyed speech, thanked her parents as she was named Gatorade National Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year after four years of winning the state award.
"I would tell my parents, ‘I really want the big one. I really want the big one," she said.
Williams got it, joining her name along a list of past award recipients and Olympians that includes Allyson Felix, Marion Jones and Bianca Knight.
"I saw the names and it's just amazing," Williams, who has her sights on the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. "It feels good to know I'm on the same track that they're on and they're Olympians and they've had a lot of success. It makes me feel like I'm definitely doing the right thing."
In her four-year career, Williams won 11 state titles. As a senior, she ran the fastest 100-meter hurdles time in the nation (13.23), an even she was never beaten in as a Longhorn. She also set a Georgia record in the long jump (20-feet 9 3/4), which was second-best in the country and won the high jump (5-8) in helping Kell to a runner-up finish in the Class 5A state meet.
Williams also set the U.S. Junior record in the heptathlon (5,578 points) at the IAAF World Junior Championship in Barcelona.
"She has such high ambitions and goals that she kept herself driven and going," said Kell coach Andi Jenkins. "I think also what helped this year was that our team had a really shot to do really well at the state meet and I think that was part of it too. She wanted to do something special for the team as well. She knew she would have to perform in order to do that.
"It's in her to do well and succeed in everything that she does. For me, it's kind of easy."
This fall, Williams will join her brother Devon at Georgia. But first, the siblings will take part in the Pan-Am Championships in Medellin, Colombia Aug. 23-25.
Devon took second in the decathlon at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, last weekend to punch his ticket, while Kendell won the Juniors heptathlon by nearly 300 points.
"I'm really excited," Kendell Williams said. "It's his first time running outside the country, so (I'm) really excited for him and excited to see how he's going to do."
There is no competitiveness between brother and sister. They are equal part cheerleader and motivator. Kendell recalls times when they were younger when her brother would be out running their neighborhood and seeing him, she'd rush to join him.
They'd train together, pushing each other. Their accomplishments are their accomplishments, not measuring sticks.
"I never really hold my accomplishments in his face," Kendell Williams said. "We support each other. We cheer each other on. I can't say I got third (at the Drake Relays), so it kind of balances out, I guess."
Still, Devon Williams admits he's in awe of the company his sister has as a National Player of the Year. As she received her award, she was flanked by posters that showed past winners Felix, Joe Mauer (who won in football), Dwight Howard and Kerri Walsh.
"I was reading some of those names like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and Allyson Felix and some of those guys and those are some of the greats that are in the game right now and she's on that list," he said. "It's real shocking."
Williams becomes the second Georgia athlete this year to be named the best in their respective sport, joining Loganville's Clint Frazier, who was selected with the fifth pick by the Indians this this month's MLB draft.
Running with her brother was part of the draw for Williams to become a Bulldog. But so too was working with assistant coach Petros Kyprianou, who has guided five first-team All-Americans and two SEC champions, and will, Williams believes, lead her to a spot in the Olympics.
I know he can get me there," she said. "So I'm just going to work hard and keep working toward the goal."
