Alabama Lasers Coach “Wig” Pearson Passes Away

Ivan McDowell, Southeast/Mid-South Editor

AAU coach mentored young men on and off the basketball court

April 21, 2007 - Longtime Alabama Lasers basketball coach William “Wig” Pearson passed away recently after battling illness. Pearson was 66 years old and is survived by his wife Selena and three sons, William, Christopher and Reginald.

“Coach Wig”, as he was affectionately known by both his players and various members of the Huntsville, AL community, was very active in the academic, athletic and social lives of the young people he taught on the basketball floor. Wig was also closely involved in and prepared his kids for life away from the hardwood.

“Coach Wig was like a father figure to me and really all of us”, stated Johnson High forward Josh Langford, who played last summer with the traveling Lasers.

“I will miss his mentorship and how he would just tell us things to make us better players and better young men. He was always there for us.”

Josh Langford is one of the many young people who will miss Wig Pearson.

Pearson would many times donate his time and money to the endeavors of the young people he cared so deeply for. There were instances he would transport kids to doctor’s appointments, practices, study hall, etc. It was those times that separated Wig from your ordinary basketball coach.

This list of young men’s lives Wig touched is too numerous to mention, but the catalogue of ball players is also quite impressive. University of Alabama stars D.J. White and Richard Hendrix, former Indiana University player Xavier Keeling, past Memphis student-athlete Duane “Red” Erwin and Alabama A&M point guard Trant Simpson are just a few of the current collegians, while high school standouts Bawa Muniri (Madison Academy), LaJay Sears (Austin High) and Frankie Sullivan (R.C. Hatch) are the latest talented examples of Coach Wigs’ influence.

Influential is what Wig was and what he was known for being.

As a student at Parker High in Birmingham in the 1960’s, Pearson was one of the leaders of local civil-rights protests. While a student at Alabama A&M University, he became further involved in the movement and participated in marches, protests and lunch counter sit-ins, leading to over 25 arrests for civil disobedience. Those actions and others, led Pearson to be widely regarded as being in the vanguard of Hunstville’s local civil rights movement.

Like Trant Simpson (above), Wig Pearson was an Alabama A&M Bulldog.

During basketball season it seemed as if Wig was at every game. Always supporting “his boys” as he’d put it, encouraging their development, lamenting their mistakes, while praising their successes.

“He always told us to keep improving and keep working to get better”, said Langford. “All of us guys depended on him for a lot.”

During the summer when Wig’s teams competed at various camps around the country, many of which I attended, he would always afford me the first opportunity to interview his players before or after games. Always telling them “He’s okay” or “go ahead, you can talk to him”.

That speaks to the type of person Wig was; always trying to help someone when they needed it. Whether the person was a precocious high school kid or an aspiring sports writer. Josh Langford summed it up best when he said “He was a father, a mentor, a coach and brother. He was everything to me and I know a lot of guys feel the same way”.

Pearson passed away on April 7, 2007. Services were held at First Baptist Church on Blue Spring Road in Huntsville, with Nelms Funeral Home attending.