Ted Williams, the Columbus, Ohio, homeless man with the golden voice we wrote about yesterday has received numerous offers for jobs and even a new home.
This morning when Williams was making a radio appearance on a local Columbus station he received a call from the Cleveland Cavaliers. "We’d like to offer you full-time work with the Cleveland Cavaliers, as well as Quicken Loans Arena. On top of it, because we know you’re a person trying to get up on your feet, Quicken Loans is actually offering to pay a mortgage on a home," team spokeswoman Tracy Merek said on the show.
The fifty-three-year-old father of nine told Cleveland’s Fox8.com that he will take the job offer.
"It’s just sensational for one, numbing for another, overwhelming," he said on CBS’ The Early Show this morning. "I’m just so, so happy."
Williams, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native, told The Columbus Dispatch he attended the Central Ohio School of Broadcasting in the 1980s. He served for three years in the U.S. Armed Forces before finding steady work at radio stations in North Carolina and Central Ohio. Then he fell onto hard times due to alcohol and drugs abuse. In his television appearance this morning Williams said he’s been sober for two and a half years.
Perhaps more emotional than the sudden job and housing offers for Williams is the opportunity to reunite with his 92-year-old mother, Julia, who he hasn’t seen in 20 years.
"I apologize. I’m getting a little emotional. I haven’t seen my mom in a great deal of time. She doesn’t believe it," he said. "One of my biggest prayers that I sent out was that she would live long enough for me to see me rebound or whatever, and I guess God kept her around and kept my pipes around to maybe just have one more shot that I would be able to say, ‘Mom, I did do it.’"
Though he may not spend too much time in New York because he’s rumored to be a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday evening in Los Angeles.
At the time of the publishing of this story Williams’ video clip on YouTube had 5,393,300 views.