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Nassau County has partnered with former NBA star Jayson Williams to help those suffering from drug addiction get their commercial driver’s license — and secure well-paying truck driving jobs that will hopefully keep them on the right path.The new program “checks a lot of boxes to make sure that people are healthy,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said at a Wednesday morning press conference in Mineola, announcing the collaboration with Williams’ organization, Rebound.County officials say the joint program — which will be funded in part by $200,000 from opioid lawsuit settlements — will lend a hand to downtrodden, formerly addicted people and get them steer their lives in the right direction.“The program is you come in, you get drug tested and you meet with over 40 different carriers because there’s 800,000 jobs needed right now in the tractor trailer industry,” Williams said.“So you get a job right when you get in.All you have to do is finish the program successfully, and you’re off.
And at this point, you are making a starting salary at $65,000 a year.”This will give them a solid paycheck, benefits and keep them busy — which will hopefully prevent recidivism, Blakeman added.“It keeps them productive, it gives them self-esteem, it gives them a sense of purpose,” he said.“They wake up in the morning and they have something to do.”“We have people that are coming out of jails and prisons throughout the United States, and if they don’t have a productive job, they’re going to go back to a life of crime,” he continued.
“This will … give people a second chance to lead a productive life.” Williams is no stranger to second chances.The 56-year-old former NBA star — who spent most of his 11 seasons with the then New Jersey Nets — frequently found trouble in his personal life, and served a 27-month sentence for the 2002 accidental shooting of his limo driver, Costas Chistofi.He also had other, more minor scrapes wi...