Caleb Williams broke his offensive coordinator’s wedding ring

The legend of Caleb Williams is already considerable. Winning the Heisman Trophy makes Caleb a college football immortal, one of the best to ever play on Saturdays. However, if the legend is going to grow, Caleb will master the art of NFL football and flourish on Sundays with the Chicago Bears. As we all wait for his hugely-anticipated NFL debut, the people who helped Caleb rise to great heights are sharing stories. ESPN’s Courtney Cronin picked up some of them in this article published after the 2024 NFL draft.

Here’s one story which is the stuff of legend: As a 16-year-old high school sophomore, Caleb broke the wedding ring of his offensive coordinator:

About halfway through a practice in 2018, Danny Schaechter, who was Gonzaga’s offensive coordinator, noticed his left hand started to throb and there was blood dripping from his ring finger.

“I’m like, ‘What the heck did I do?’ And then I realized, ‘Oh crap — my wedding ring is split in half,'” Schaechter said.

Williams had whipped a pass so hard that it splintered the metal of Schaechter’s ring and cut his finger. When the OC relayed the story to his wife, her anger quickly turned to disbelief over the velocity of the throw that came from a 16-year-old sophomore’s arm.

There was something special in a 16-year-old who — several years later — is now a No. 1 draft pick being asked to carry Chicago’s long-suffering NFL team back to prominence. We’ll see if the legend of Caleb Williams, built on remarkable stories such as this one, can grow even more.

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