Williams Enrolls in Summer School

The NCAA has not received his reinstatement application, but USC wide receiver Mike Williams will take another step toward regaining his amateur eligibility when he begins summer school next week.

USC officials said Williams was enrolled in two classes. “This is part of the process that I have to take care of,” Williams said in a radio interview Thursday with KMPC. He has been working out in Florida in the hope of playing football in the fall.

“I don’t have any intentions of really just being gung-ho and going hard with the football part,” he said, “because I would really hate if the NCAA comes knocking two or three weeks later, and the next thing you know they bagged the whole deal.”

Williams, a sophomore All-American on the Trojans’ national championship football team last season, dropped out of school at the start of the spring semester and followed Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett in declaring his availability for the NFL draft after a federal judge had ruled that all underclassmen could turn pro.

But once that ruling was stayed, and the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York decided that the NFL could determine when players could join the league, Williams was left in limbo.

Since then, Williams has worked at reinstatement by the NCAA.

He severed his professional relationship with his agent and family friend, Mike Azzarelli, then filed necessary paperwork with USC’s compliance officials, documenting everything he’d received as a professional, including deals with Nike and a football trading card company.

“In my reinstatement process, you have to give back hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and when you’re 20 years old and all you’ve been doing is volunteering at the Y, you can’t give that money back,” Williams said. “The hurdle was to see if my parents could do that, and we’ve got over that hurdle.... The money has been paid back.”

USC’s formal reinstatement request had not been received as of Thursday, according to Gail Dent of the NCAA.

“Mike has been intending to do this for quite some time,” said USC Coach Pete Carroll, who declined to identify the classes that Williams would take this summer. “I think it sends a clear message that he’ll do whatever is necessary to return to USC.”

Times staff writer Gary Klein contributed to this report.