Some people see a challenge and run away. Other people look at a challenge and dribble in for a layup. Eden Williamson is one of those people. A driven student athlete and scholar, Williamson is poised to graduate from Trinity High School with top honors and attend New York University (NYU) as a member of their Division III women’s basketball team and pre-med major.

Williamson has been playing basketball for much of her life. She spent her earliest years at her older sister’s basketball practices, getting involved with Little Dribbler’s youth camps in kindergarten and first grade before joining her first organzed team for Trinity North Elementary School in second. She continued in the Trinity youth basketball program through elementary school before she got involved with her first AAU travel team in fifth grade. 

Williamson played on several AAU teams over the next seven years and traveled around the state and country for various tournaments. She considers the program a very positive experience that exposed her to many new people and fostered both her personal love and technical skill for basketball. 

Her father, Mike Williamson, was her coach during much of this time and Williamson feels that he had the greatest impact on her athletic development as, “he always pushed me to accomplish my goals.”

Her coach throughout high school, Kathy McConnell-Miller, credits Williamson’s parents for being remarkable role models who set her on the right path from an early age. 

Williamson continued to play Trinity basketball through middle school and transitioned to the THS team the summer between her eighth and ninth grade years. She started varsity on the Trinity girls’ basketball team her freshman year and fondly remembers the feeling of playing, and winning, the first game she started as a ninth grader. 

McConnell-Miller notes Williamson’s maturity and technical skill coming into the THS program as a freshman. 

“Our biggest goal was getting her prepared for the next level,” she says, “Eden worked beyond any of our expectations day in and day out. The opportunity to teach her was something we all took a lot of pride in, and she responded to it very well.” Williamson is grateful for the team leaders during her underclassmen years because they taught her how to lead others and prepared her take up the torch as an upperclassmen; she was a team captain for the girls’ varsity team in her junior and senior years. 

McConnell-Miller praises Williamson for her ability to lead by example, adding that Williamson mentored younger players year after year and showed them how to progress as high school athletes. 

Williamson has overcome any challenges in her path to collegiate athletics, including injury and the COVID-19 pandemic. Her perseverance is part of what landed her a spot on the NYU women’s basketball team. Williamson has been formally committed to NYU since December 20, 2022.

She is extremely excited to attend college in New York City and immerse herself in the new opportunities that will become available to her. 

Her main goals in college are to play basketball all four years at NYU and qualify for the Academic All-America team, which recognizes scholar-athletes across the nation. After that, she plans to attend medical school to become a doctor, though she is not yet sure what specialty she’d like to pursue. 

Williamson is understandably a little apprehensive about the work-life balance that being a collegiate student-athlete will require, but she feels confident she’ll be able to adapt once she’s on campus.

In high school, she excelled in the classroom just as much as the basketball court. At the top of her class with ten AP classes under her belt and a 5.0 GPA, Williamson set academic standards for herself that were just as high as her athletic goals. She was recently awarded the WPIAL James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award and is additionally a member of the National Honor Society and Varsity Academic League. She is also a three-year qualifier for the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science State Competition. 

Regardless of where basketball or her professional career takes her, Williamson will no doubt approach whatever comes her way with the same self-driven attitude appreciated by her coaches and admired by her teammates.

“Everybody’s says they want to be great. Everybody says they want to be a next level player. Eden just has the ability to see things through. She’s determined beyond most high school athletes… You don’t have the type of high school players that Eden was for Trinity basketball very often. She will be missed by the staff and the program,” says McConnell-Miller.

As Williamson prepares to leave Trinity High School, she considers the lasting impact the basketball program has had on her life and her advice for underclassmen: “I’m very thankful to have been a part of it, and it has been an amazing experience for me. [I’d tell underclassmen to] just enjoy it. Don’t stress too much about the little things. It’s a lot of fun, so enjoy the ride.”