FRUITPORT – There are those who say it’s difficult for athletes to stay motivated when they play for a losing team.

They’ve obviously never watched Fruitport sophomore DayDay Williams play football.

Wiliams is an energizer bunny on the field, regardless of the score or his team’s record. His performance last Friday night was a good example.

The Trojans came into the game against Hudsonville Unity Christian with an 0-5 record and few observers gave them any chance of winning.

On the first play from scrimmage Williams went up to catch a pass and took a nasty hit from a Unity Christian defender.

A photo of the hit made it look pretty painful – and Williams admits that it was.

But Williams hopped right back to his feet, headed back to the huddle, and proceeded to have his best game of the season so far.

He ran the ball six times, including a long run of 34 yards, and scored a touchdown on a two-yard burst. He caught a pass for eight yards, one of only two Trojans receptions in the game.

He roared on defense from his safety position, leading the team with nine tackles and recovering a fumble.

Williams never stopped grinding, even as the scoreboard looked worse and worse for Fruitport. The Trojans trailed 22-7 after one quarter, 36-13 at halftime, and ended up losing 58-20.

“His effort is just relentless, whether he has the ball or not,” said Fruitport head coach Nate Smith, whose team will visit Coopersville on Friday in search of its first win. “He’s so into every single play that’s going on. I wish we could bottle that and give it to every player. He’s just all in.”

Williams, who plays bigger than his 5-foot-9, 140-pound frame, just shrugged and said, “I do all I can for the team, because team does all it can for me.”

Williams burst onto the scene last winter as a standout freshman on the varsity basketball team, but was an unknown quantity in football after playing last fall on the ninth-grade squad.

Bit by bit, however, everyone is starting to understand what a special player he can be.

He gave a hint about his running ability in Week 4 when he broke loose for a 25-yard scamper against Kenowa Hills. He added a 25-yard kickoff return the following week against Grand Rapids Christian.

He gave a hint about his pass-catching ability in Week 4 against Holland Christian, when he had nine receptions for 74 yards. He also caught a pass from the opposing quarterback on defense for his first varsity interception.

Everyone noticed his tackling ability against Unity Christian last week, when he led the team for the first time in his career.

There isn’t a lot on the field that Williams can’t do. He plays wide receiver and slot receiver on offense, cornerback and safety on defense, and returns kicks.

He even got a chance to play a little quarterback in Week 4 against Allendale when starter Bradon Dornbos sat out with an injury.

It did not go particularly well. He ran the ball 11 times but was dropped for losses on five of those plays.

“I only played a little in the first half,” said Williams, who hasn’t played a lot of QB in his young career. ‘It wasn’t working, so that’s when (Kayden) Beardsley came in. It was a lot of pressure. You control the whole offense.”

Smith gave Williams credit for giving it a shot, and said the sophomore has many more good plays than bad ones this season.

“He had a tough time at Allendale, but that was because we were overmatched on the front line,” the coach said. “He never complains about any assignment. He just says, ‘Coach, what I am doing?’ then we tell him and he just says, ‘Got it.’

“He’s really dynamic with the ball. He makes guys miss all over the place. And if he’s the backside receiver with the play going away from him, he still blocks like crazy. That’s just him.”

Williams said he goes all-out on every play of every game for lots of different reasons.

He said he’s partly working toward the future. He wants to get better personally, and with a lot of other sophomores on the varsity squad, he’s hoping for more wins down the road.

He said he also plays hard for the current seniors, who were clearly not counting on having such a tough season in their final year.

“I see them every day, trying their hardest every day,” Williams said. “They are committed. We just need our whole team to step up. We still have three games to play.”

On top of all that, Williams said he found a new passion for football this season, and is simply having fun playing the games, regardless of the outcomes.

“I’m having a good time playing football,” he said. “After losing so many games, you kind of have to look for the fun. You can’t just be mad every day. The game was meant to be fun.”