Strand resident Williams has number retired by Southern Cal

Gus Williams, who has had a residence on the Grand Strand for the past five years, had his No. 10 basketball jersey retired by the University of Southern California on Thursday night.

The ceremony was held in conjunction with the Trojans’ game against UCLA, which featured the first sellout at the 10,258-seat Galen Center since Jan. 9, 2011, and was won by USC, 80-61.

Williams, who earned the nickname “The Wizard” for his flashy style of play, was a three-year letterman (1973-75), earned All-America first team, All-Pac-8 first team and USC MVP honors in 1975 when he led the conference in scoring with 21.2 points per game. He finished his career with 1,308 points, which is 15th on USC’s all-time list.

In 1974, he averaged a team-best 15.5 points and led USC to a 24-5 record. He was inducted into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor in 2009.

Professionally, Williams led the Seattle SuperSonics to the 1979 NBA championship while averaging a team-high 28.6 points per game in the finals. He averaged 17.1 points per game in a 12-year career from 1975 to 1987, and in 2004 Williams’ No. 1 jersey was retired by the Sonics.

The Mount Vernon, N.Y., native was a celebrity host for three years of the Know Your Score Celebrity Golf Tournament & Gala, which raised money and awareness in the fight against prostate cancer and was held at Pawleys Plantation in 2011-12 and Grande Dunes in 2013.

This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 7:53 PM with the headline "Strand resident Williams has number retired by Southern Cal."