Nassau County partners with ex-NBA star Jayson Williams to help recovering addicts get truck-driving jobs

Nassau County has partnered with former NBA star Jayson Williams to help those suffering from drug addiction get their commercial driver’s license — and secure well-paying truck driving jobs that will hopefully keep them on the right path.

The new program “checks a lot of boxes to make sure that people are healthy,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said at a Wednesday morning press conference in Mineola, announcing the collaboration with Williams’ organization, Rebound.

County officials say the joint program — which will be funded in part by $200,000 from opioid lawsuit settlements — will lend a hand to downtrodden, formerly addicted people and help them steer their lives in the right direction.

“The program is you come in, you get drug tested and you meet with over 40 different carriers because there’s 800,000 jobs needed right now in the tractor trailer industry,” Williams said.

“So you get a job right when you get in. All you have to do is finish the program successfully, and you’re off. And at this point, you are making a starting salary at $65,000 a year.”

This will give them a solid paycheck, benefits and keep them busy — which will hopefully prevent recidivism, Blakeman added.

“It keeps them productive, it gives them self-esteem, it gives them a sense of purpose,” he said. “They wake up in the morning and they have something to do.”

“We have people that are coming out of jails and prisons throughout the United States, and if they don’t have a productive job, they’re going to go back to a life of crime,” he continued. “This will … give people a second chance to lead a productive life.” 

Williams is no stranger to second chances.

The 56-year-old former NBA star — who spent most of his 11 seasons with the then New Jersey Nets — frequently found trouble in his personal life, and served a 27-month sentence for the 2002 accidental shooting of his limo driver, Costas Chistofi.

He also had other, more minor scrapes with the law, including an alleged 2009 suicide attempt in New York City, a North Carolina bar fight, accusations that he fatally shot his Rottweiler after losing a bet and a drunken car accident that put him in Rikers Island for nearly a year.

He also pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in 2007, and struggled with addition to alcohol and prescription drugs — eventually being forced into rehab by pals Charles Oakley, the legendary New York Knicks forward, and Curtis Martin, the famed New York Jets running back, according to The Palm Beach Post.

“I had no purpose,” Williams said. “I was like a ship without a rudder. Nobody would give me the opportunity to get back on TV or to do the things I wanted to do. I ballooned up to about 316 pounds. My life was just a mess.”

He has since recovered, and started Rebound with the intention of helping others.

On Wednesday, Williams said he’d been around trucking his whole life — his dad drove tractor-trailers, and he’d sometimes go along.

“We’d pull from Elizabeth, New Jersey — we’d pull Budweiser down, and then we’d pull shrimp back,” he said. “So I’ve been in this industry a long time. It’s a passion of mine.”

Getting ex-addicts away from the drugs and into the trucks is a “perfect mix” that will give those in recovery “the opportunity to get themselves together and see some of the world,” he added.  

“They just want a job,” Williams continued. “You give a man a job, you give him hope, and he’s got self-esteem and self-respect, and he can go out in this world and change it. That would help the recidivism. You know, it really does.”

Blakeman echoed this, and said helping those in need is “what government should be about.”

“It’s not a Republican thing. It’s not a Democrat thing,” he said. “It’s about helping people. We have an opioid crisis in this country. We’ve got to get serious about helping people, and I think that the opioid funds that we’re dedicating today will be put to good use.”

“We’re very, very honored that you pick Nassau County to start this program.”