Willie is the winningest coach in modern Los Angeles City basketball history, and coached over 50 college players while serving as the head coach at Crenshaw High School. The former Cal State Los Angeles basketball and baseball player, and member of the school’s 2007 CSLA Athletics Hall of Fame class, won a record eight California state titles, 16 Los Angeles City Section titles, and 28 league titles since he began coaching in 1968. At Crenshaw was 802-139 (.852 winning percentage) in 37 years of coaching (1971-2007), and no other coach can match his winning percentage.

The 1985 Crenshaw team, which finished 31-0, traveled to Denmark and won the High School International Tournament Championship. He came to Southern California from Texas and started at Los Angeles City College. He was LA City Coach of the Year 10 times, and California State coach of the year twice at Crenshaw. He was twice selected to coach the USA High School Basketball Team that competed in Colorado Springs. He won the LA City title in his first year as head coach in 1971. He ranks in the top five in California lifetime coaching wins with over 1,000. In 1990, the ‘L.A. Sentinel’ newspaper named him “Man of the Year.” He was part of the inaugural class of the Los Angeles City Athletics HOF in 2011.