Becoming the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft is a dream many chase, but few ever catch—unless, of course, you’re Caleb Williams. Not only was the USC alum and Chicago Bears quarterback the top pick, but he also carried with him unreal hype. He arrived in the big league as a Heisman Trophy winner, a college football sensation, and Chicago’s chosen savior.
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That said, it’s important to recognize that Williams’ success isn’t entirely his own. One key factor that shaped him—long before he played under the lights of Soldier Field—was a grueling early-morning routine enforced by his relentless father, who refused to let him settle for anything less.
Before Williams threw a pass in the NFL, before he led Gonzaga High to legendary comebacks or USC to national headlines, his days began in the dark. Literally.
“Every day, my dad would wake me up at 4:30 A.M. to be at the training facility by 5:30,” Williams recalled in his recent interview with Esquire. “After school and homework, I’d be back to train again from 6:30 to 8:30 P.M., sometimes later. Then go home and do it all again.”
It was a regimen built for greatness—but one that also tested the father-son relationship to its limits. There were mornings when Caleb didn’t want to move, worn down both physically and emotionally. He just wanted to do normal things for once. “There were days I cried from frustration because I just wanted to hang out with my friends,” he admitted. “(Then), my dad would remind me of what I set out to go for and be.”
Those clashes were real. The pressure to be “Superman,” a nickname Williams carried since his early football days, wasn’t just from media or fans—it started at home. Luckily, when father and son locked horns, it was Williams’ mom who often played peacemaker.
Perhaps it’s the tough foundation built by Caleb’s father that helped him endure what turned into a nightmarish rookie year in the NFL. After a promising 4–2 start, the Bears collapsed. They lost 10 straight games. His coach was fired. Williams was sacked a league-high 68 times. And the toll wasn’t just physical for Caleb.
“When I got home, I got in my bed. I just dropped a few tears,” he said. “And I was just so beat-up mentally, physically, spiritually.”
Yet, as the star QB now reflects on those painful Sundays—and the even tougher Mondays after—he sees purpose in the pain. “I think those (regular season) losses were pretty important for me and my growth,” he said. “To go on a losing streak, to be in this position and be at the helm of it, was definitely important for me.”
Today, he’s not just recovering physically—he’s recharging emotionally. Williams has been spending his offseason in Copenhagen, Denmark, where his girlfriend Alina Thyregod attends college. There, he’s studying plays over ginger beer in quiet cafés, putting distance between himself and the storm that was Year One.
But make no mistake—the drive that got him here hasn’t dimmed. “I’m going to work my tail off to never be in that situation again,” he said.
Caleb Williams may be a free spirit off the field, from fashion shows in Paris to solar startups in D.C., but when it comes to football, he’s still that 10-year-old kid who cried after a loss — and swore he’d become the greatest quarterback to ever play the sport.
And if history tells us anything, it’s that every superhero has an origin story. For Caleb Williams, his story might have started at 4:30 in the morning.
