The 2025 season was the first season as a member of the Big 12 Conference for Arizona State, and Williams helped put together a solid season after losing half of the starting lineups from 2024. The Sun Devils qualified for NCAA Regionals for the last eight seasons in a row, this season going to the Washington Regional and placing fourth in the first session of the second round. The Sun Devils, who ended the season at No. 27 on Road to Nationals, ended the regular season with a 196.310 National Qualifying Score (NQS), the eighth season in a row with an NQS over 196.000. There were six scores over 196.000 this season, including a season-best 196.800 at Cal Quad 1 on March 14.
In James Williams' first season in 2024, Arizona State finished the season ranked No. 16 on Road to Nationals and qualified for NCAA Regionasl. After finishing in the top two in the second round at the California Regional, ASU moved on to the regional finals for the second-straight year and the third time in the last four years. Two Gym Devils qualified as individuals to the NCAA Championships in Jada Mangahas on bars, an event that Williams helps coach. The season high of 197.600 came on senior night against Southern Connecticut, which is the 11th-highest team score in ASU history.
Hired on June 1, 2023, Williams came to Arizona State after working as a recruiting associate. Prior to that, he spent four seasons at San José State, where he was primarily a bars and floor coach. He also has experience coaching at Yale and in club gymnastics. With the Spartans, Williams helped the team reach new heights as the bars and floor coach in his four years there. The 2022 MPSF Assistant Coach of the Year, he helped the team earn eight of the top-10 team program bests on bars and the top six on floor. On bars, one of those was a program record of 49.350, which was set in 2022. That season, the team set the five highest team scores in program history and earned nine of the top 10 individual all-around scores. In the MPSF conference, he helped the squad sweep first-team all-conference on bars in 2022. During his time, he coached 10 All-MPSF selections on bars and nine on floor.
At Yale, he was an assistant coach for a year, where he was the primary vault, bars and floor coach. He was named the 2018 ECAC Assistant Coach of the Year. The 2018 team had the highest team score, bars score and vault score in school history as well as its highest RQS in program history. Two Bulldogs qualified for the NCAA Regional for the first time, and the team broke more than 40 school records.
A club coach with over 12 years experience at JO and Level 10 or higher, he was the women’s team coach at AIM Texans Athletics in The Woodlands, Texas prior to going to Yale. Williams coached the women’s team at the KPAC Kristie Phillips Athletic Center in Statesville, N.C., and at the Stars Gymnastics Training Center in Houston, Texas.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Williams is a 2010 University of Houston graduate with a bachelor’s degree in business.