It started with an early love for the Dallas Cowboys.
As a young girl, Beaumont native Charean Williams shared a passion for the team with her grandmother, Mam-ma Dorothy Stanphill, who lived in Hillsboro.
"She gave me my love of the Cowboys," Williams told The Enterprise. "We'd sometimes arrange our visits (to Hillsboro) around when the Cowboys played because she and I were such big Cowboys fans. We talked every Sunday -- after the game, had to call Mam-ma and we'd dissect the games on Sunday."
Little did Williams or perhaps even Mam-ma know at the time that their Sunday ritual would turn into an illustrious career in sports journalism, eventually landing Williams' name in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and most recently the Museum of the Gulf Coast Sports Hall of Fame.
By second grade, Williams knew sports journalism was her calling, thanks to a call made by her teacher, Cindy Bridges.
"I asked (Bridges), 'How far is it to Dallas?'" Williams said. "She knew I was a big Cowboys fan because I wore all of my Cowboys stuff to school and everything. She said, 'Well, it's 300 miles, five hours. Why do you want to know?' and I said, 'Because I'm going to marry Roger Staubach (then-quarterback for the Cowboys).' She thought that was cute and she sent out Joe Cody, he was a human interest-type reporter for The (Beaumont) Enterprise at the time."
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Cody wrote "Of Dallas Cowboys 'Youngest Fan,'" published March 16, 1973, highlighting Williams' love of the team, including a picture of eight-year old Williams in her Roger Staubach jersey.
In the article, Williams mentioned her intention to marry Staubach, but also that she dreamed of one day covering the Cowboys.
"I probably thought (it would be) more in broadcast or radio or something, and I practiced my play-by-play in an A-framed metal swing set that we had," she said. "I would take that little plastic cap off because you could hear your voice reverberate and (announce that) Roger Staubach threw a touchdown pass to Drew Pearson (then-Cowboys wide receiver). I thought that was really cool and I would practice my interviews on my little cassette recorder with my sister Charla."
While Williams never did marry Staubach, her other dream came true in 1999 when she moved to Dallas-Fort Worth to start covering the Cowboys for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a job she held until she was laid off in 2017.
"(Mam-ma) would be amazed if she were still alive that I'm on a first-name basis with Roger Staubach and that I got to present Drew Pearson for the Hall of Fame and Gil Brandt, I got to present him for the Hall of Fame," Williams said. "I think she would be really amazed and very proud that I have gotten to cover the Cowboys and live out my dream."
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Though she originally thought she'd go into the broadcast side of sports news, writing always came naturally to her, Williams said. She got an early taste of what a sportswriting career would be like her senior year of high school. Part of the inaugural 1983 class of West Brook High School, Williams got to cover the Bruins' victory over L.D. Bell in the fall 1982 football state championship.
"It was just a natural gift that God gave me," she said.
Williams graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in journalism and spent much of her time working on KAMU-TV's evening sports show, a move she said in hindsight was smart.
"I worked for the school paper, The Battalion -- writing was just easy for me," she said. "The interviewing, I probably worked a little more on that to become a better interviewer. (Experience in both print and broadcast journalism) serves you very well now because the way our industry has changed, you've got to be able to do a little bit of everything. So, I think that was very beneficial to have had the broadcast side in college as well as improving my writing."
Now an independent writer for NBC Sports, Williams does more writing than broadcasting but does broadcast on occasion.
"I don't know if I would be as good at it today if I hadn't had those experiences in college of being on TV and doing some of that," she said.
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In her three decades as a sportswriter, Williams has had a plethora of memorable experiences -- too many to name all of them.
"Covering seven Olympics (four summer, three winter) and 28 Super Bowls, those are probably the highlights for me," she said. "There's been so many things that make the career so great. I'm very blessed and humbled to have gotten to do what I've gotten to do in my career and the number of firsts that I've been able to set."
Those firsts are numerous. Williams is the first woman to have a vote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the first woman to serve as president of the Pro Football Writers of America, serving for the 2009-10 season. In 2018, she became the first woman to win the PFWA Dick McCann Memorial Award, putting her name in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
"When I was an eight-year old, I didn't know that women didn't do this (job)," she said. "It was something that I wanted to do. I never set our to pave any roads or be a pioneer or whatever you want to call it. This is just what I wanted to do. I thought it was fun and I love football, studying football, watching football -- everything. My saying has kind of become, 'Just because something hasn't been done doesn't mean it can't be done.' I've done a lot of things that haven't been done before but I never set out to do that."
Williams recalled facing challenges she experienced as a woman, particularly earlier in her career. Right out of college, Williams was working at the Bryan-College Station Eagle and Texas A&M University was playing the University of Arkansas for the Southwest Conference Championship.
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"My editor assigned me to get a sidebar on (Arkansas quarterback) Quinn Grovey," Williams said. "I went up to the sports information director from Arkansas and I said, 'Hey, I'm coming to your locker room after the game,' and he said, 'Well, we don't allow women in our locker room.' And I said, 'What would you like me to do?' He goes, 'What do you need?' I said, 'I'm writing a sidebar on your quarterback Quinn Grovey and I would like (to interview) Quinn and (Arkansas' then-coach).' And he said, 'We're going to open the locker room and the men are all going to go in and when the coach and the quarterback finish with the men, I will bring them out for you to interview.'"
After standing outside the locker room for a while, longtime sportswriter Kirk Bohls came out of the locker room and asked Williams why she was standing there.
"I said, 'I'm waiting for (the coach) and Quinn Grovey,'" she said. "He said, 'There's a back exit, they're gone.' I don't know if I wanted to throw up or cry, probably a little bit of both. (Bohls) put his arm around me and said, 'Hey, I got all the quotes, I'll give you everything I've got.' That's the kind of stuff early in my career that you kind of had to navigate through to get here where we are today where things have changed. They're not perfect, they're never going to be perfect, but I'll venture to say that most women haven't had an experience like that (in sportswriting) in the past 15 years. It's great to see more women doing this now, so it's not a surprise when women do go to the locker room."
After 30 years, one might think any job would get boring year after year. But, particularly as an independent writer, Williams said she's able to keep the job fresh, adding that covering all pro football teams compared to just the Cowboys also keeps it interesting.
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"There's just more stories to choose from -- there's different stories and they're different all the time," she said. "I never probably would have left the Star-Telegram unless I was forced to leave and I was laid off in 2017. As hurtful as that was, to my pride, to my ego and could have been to my wallet, NBC picked me up right away. While the Star-Telegram was great to me and really pushed my career forward and let me live out my dream of covering the Cowboys, I'm in the best possible place I can be right now."
Though she no longer lives in Southeast Texas, Williams said she takes Jefferson County with her wherever she goes, noting that her Feb. 25 induction into the Museum of the Gulf Coast Sports Hall of Fame was a meaningful moment for her.
"(Beaumont) will always be home," she said. "It's just a blessing to know that my name is going to be there with three coaches I covered -- Jimmy Johnson, Wade Phillips and R.C. Slocum. Getting to be in there with them is just really cool."
And Williams isn't done just yet. She just signed a new two-year contract in September with NBC Sports and is expecting to keep reporting for that time. As for after that, there are still some things she'd like to accomplish.
"I did go back and get my master's degree in 2018 so I could teach and might do that when I'm done," she said. "Probably the biggest thing I haven't done that I would love to do is write a book. That remains on my bucket list. There's a few things that I haven't covered or been to that I'd still like to, like the Rose Bowl and the Masters."
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A lot has changed in the journalism industry since Williams began her career.
"When I first started we didn't have the internet," she said.
She encourages young journalist-hopefuls to be multi-faceted.
"You can't just be a writer anymore and expect to keep your job," she said. "You have to be able to shoot video and edit video and talk on camera, do podcasts -- everything that goes into it. It's just a lot more than what it once was. (But), if it's something that you love, you should do it. I think whatever it is that any young person wants to do, they should go after that dream and take it to the very end until you either get the dream or it's not there anymore. This is a lot of fun. There's a reason that people used to refer to the sports department as a toy department, because we do have a lot of fun and we get paid to go to games. What can be better than that?"