Paul Williams knows something about trophies.
Make that, Paul Williams knows a lot about trophies.
He’s got plenty. Some of those he’s earned. Most of them he sells.
The 62-year-old native of Bedford-Stuyvesant has been the owner of Absolutely Trophies for the last 10 years. It’s a trophy and awards recognition business that does specialized custom awards for all industries.
But his real passion — handball.
A member of the undefeated Brooklyn Tech handball team of 1975, Williams had his dreams disappear when the New York City budget cuts hit a year later.
“We didn’t have a team the following year,” the ’76 grad of Tech told the Eagle. “Handball has always been my first love. My brother played, and I always tried to beat him.”
His brother wasn’t the only person who fell to Paul Williams. He attended Kingsboro Community College and receive his Associate’s Degree in Physics – and got his Bachelor’s at Hunter College.
And handball followed him through his schooling.
“I competed in the National Collegiate Tournament,” he said. “I’ve been playing handball for about 52 years. I’ve been playing in tournaments for probably about a good 40 of those years.”
He’s won National titles and won World Championship titles.
For his efforts, Paul Williams is a member of the New York as well as National Handball Hall of Fame.
As a contributor, Paul Williams is the only African-American in the Hall.
Thirty years ago, he started a nonprofit called Inner City Handball Association. He said he thought he was going to be helping out a few kids just like he was helped as a junior and ended up helping thousands.
When the recession hit in 2009, Williams was out of a job for two years.
“I was doing computer consulting for a while,” he said, “but I needed something full time.”
His trophy customer at the time – Crown Trophy – asked, “Why don’t you take over the business?”
That was Herb Turetzky – the same Herb Turetzky who has served as the scorekeeper for the Brooklyn Nets for the past 54 years.
“He thought I’d be a good fit because there was new technology coming into the trophy industry,” Williams said. I had the nonprofit. I was affiliated with all the high schools so he felt those would be good customers for me to sell product.”
Turetzky was right.
Since Williams dealt with so many kids from different schools, that became a client base.
“I delt with the athletic directors, coaches, and principals of those schools,” he said. “And because of my background in computer technology, I decided to get new technology like laser engravers, UV printers, so I can do a lot of production in house a lot faster, more efficiently.”
Williams claims he’s not just a trophy store.
“A lot of people want to show appreciation to others for what they’ve done for their communities or congratulate someone for their accomplishment,” he said. “During the pandemic, in the beginning everything was shut down. But then you have first responders that were doing incredible work.”
Williams says he had customers that would want to send something to show their appreciation to a first responder, a doctor, a nurse, or a caregiver. Thank you for being there. Thank you for saving my life.
“As we came out of this,” he said, “people wanted to award the top salesperson, the top this, the top that. They want to thank their staff. And they stepped up and even gave better awards than they normally did.”
And don’t forget the custom branded masks. “We had institutions asking us for masks with their logos, decals we could put on the floors with social distancing,” he said.
Paul Williams is a true champion and Hall of Famer.
He certainly has the trophies to prove it.
Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR
