Willie grew up being an athlete. Starting out as an All-Star high school football player and voted "All-Conference Center and Linebacker" at Savannah State College, Willie competed as a senior master in the Northern California Outrigger Canoe Association. His team ranked 1st in Northern California. Ranked as one of the best "seat fours" (power position) in Nor Cal, Willie competed on a Nor Cal All Star team in the Bankoh Moloka'i Hoe Island-to-Island canoe race.

After sustaining a spinal injury and opting not to have surgery, Willie chose physical therapy to repair his back injury, As a spinning instructor since 1999 and voted "Bally/Gorrilla/Pinnacle Group Exercise Instructor of the Year" in 2000, Willie was forced to master teaching spinning while off the bike. Determined to recover as quickly as possible and return to his normal activities, Willie felt that he needed to learn as much as possible about his injury to enhance his chances for a complete recovery. While conducting his own personal rehabilitation, Willie soon realized that balance, core strength, and stability were the key elements to a healthy, physical quality of life, and decided to implement these elements into a program that uses his specific conditioning philosophy and technique which has proven successful over the past fifty years. The program is called BLAST. This program was piloted to a wide-range of students, fitness instructors, business professionals, law enforcement personnel, professional athletes as well as medical professionals.