SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Every Monday when he could, Terrell Williams would show up for New England's defensive meetings and praise the unit for an interception, sack or pass breakup during the previous game, and his players found joy in seeing the strength of their coach as he fought cancer.
“I feel like he never lost it,” linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson said. “He still had the charismatic energy and kept a smile on his face, he kept being positive. You wouldn't be able to know anything was going on with him. I appreciated everything that he showed throughout the process."
The defensive coordinator is now back with the Patriots for the Super Bowl on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks after a nearly five-month battle with prostate cancer.
Williams attended meetings at the Patriots’ facility during his treatment, but he hasn’t traveled with the team all season and hasn’t been on the sideline since Week 1. Inside linebackers coach Zak Kuhr filled in as New England’s defensive play-caller.
Williams was declared cancer-free during the playoffs and cleared to join the team at the Super Bowl.
He was diagnosed because he thought he had a stomach illness following a Week 1 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. When Williams told Mike Vrabel after the game he wasn’t feeling well, the head coach urged him to get checked out by the medical staff and Williams was immediately sent to urgent care.
“As they were doing tests, that’s when they found out about the cancer, so thank God that I had the stomach flu because if I didn’t it just would have been business as usual,” Williams said Monday at media night for the Super Bowl.
Chaisson said Williams provided everybody with an emotional lift with his presence and positive spirt despite the obstacles he faced.
“It's huge, for sure," Chaisson said of Williams' return. “Coach has been with us throughout all year, though. We never forgot about him. Everybody continued to call and check on him throughout his recovery but to see him back around and to see him full-time smiling and his very positive energy, it'll uplift every ounce of joy that we have in our lives.”
Williams focused on his mental approach and found it important to share his tough days with the players “because keeping that stuff in, that's not the way to go.”
“I'm from South-Central Los Angeles, and we were taught where I grew up to keep things inside,” he said. "And now going through what I went through over the last year, I'm not keeping it inside, I'm sharing with people. The struggles, not just the nausea and the things you're going through, but also the mental part because there's a mental component that's probably the biggest going through a struggle like that.”
Safety Jaylinn Hawkins praised Williams' heart, even when he was dealing with his illness.
“He's been a hell of a coach for us since he got here,” Hawkins said. "All that he was going through he still managed to show up for us and that's special and that means a lot. Showing up for people is something I take serious. To see him showing up for our team the way he did regardless of what was going on was just amazing to me, and that just shows how much he loves and cares about us.”
Now that he is medically cleared, Williams is busy preparing his team for a tough Seahawks offense. But he's also allowing himself to reflect a bit on his remarkable comeback journey.
“Honestly, my thoughts are about the game and not really about me or the Super Bowl or anything,” he said. “This could be a preseason game and I'd be happy to be here with these guys after kind of what I've been through, what we've been through. It's been joyous for me just to watch them develop and watch them buy into the message that Vrabes is preaching.”
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New England Patriots defensive coordinator Terrell Williams speaks to the media during Opening Night on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, in San Jose, Calif., ahead of the Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. (Jeff Lewis/AP Content Services for the NFL)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he's “not ripping down” the Kennedy Center but insisted the performing arts venue needs to shut down for about two years for construction and other work without patrons coming and going and getting in the way.
The comments strongly suggested that he intends to gut the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of the process.
“I’m not ripping it down," the Republican president told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’ll be using the steel. So we’re using the structure.”
Such a project would mark the Republican president's latest effort to put his stamp on a cultural institution that Congress designated as a living memorial to President Kennedy, a Democrat. It also would be in addition to attempts to leave a permanent mark on Washington through other projects, the most prominent of which is adding a ballroom to the White House.
Shortly after taking office last year, Trump dismissed Kennedy Center board members who had been appointed by Democratic presidents and replaced them with loyalists, who voted to make him chairman. He helped choose the recipients of the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, a program he avoided during his first term. He later hosted the event, and the board voted late last year to rebrand the Kennedy Center by adding his name to the building and website.
Trump announced Sunday on social media that he intends to temporarily close the performing arts venue on July 4 for about two years “for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding," subject to board approval.
The announcement followed a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president took over leadership of the arts institution. Trump did not mention the cancellations in his announcements, or during his comments Monday.
Kennedy Center Arts Workers United, which includes several unions representing the institution's arts workers, said in a statement that it was aware of Trump's announcement but had received no formal notice or briefing about his plans. The group pledged to enforce its members' contractual rights.
“Should we receive formal notice of a temporary suspension of Kennedy Center operations that displaces our members, we will enforce our contracts and exercise all our rights under the law,” the statement said. “We expect continued fair pay, enforceable worker protections, and accountability for our members in the event they cannot work due to an operational pause.”
Recalling his past career in construction and real estate, Trump said, “you want to sit with something for a little while before you decide on what you want to do.” Speaking of the Kennedy Center, he said: “We sat with it. We ran it. It's in very bad shape,” asserting that the building is “run down,” “dilapidated” and “sort of dangerous.”
Roma Daravi, a Kennedy Center spokesperson, said in a social media post that “decades of gross negligence” has led to $250 million of deferred maintenance needs and that temporarily closing the institution “is the most logical choice to allow for comprehensive renovations, efficient project completion, and responsible use of taxpayer dollars.”
Deborah Rutter, the Kennedy Center president who was ousted by Trump, declined comment Monday. In the past, she has said allegations from Trump and others about the center's management were false.
A representative for David Rubenstein, the board chairman who was also pushed out by Trump, said Rubenstein was not available Monday to comment.
Trump, citing the complaints of a workman he said has been laying marble at the Kennedy Center, said the closure is needed because "you can't do any work because people are coming in and out.”
He pegged the cost at about $200 million, including the use of “the highest-grade marbles, the highest-grade everything.”
“We’re fully financed and so we’re going to close it and we’re going to make it unbelievable, far better than it ever was, and we’ll be able to do it properly," Trump said.
Congress earmarked $257 million for the Kennedy Center in a tax cut and spending bill that Trump signed into law last summer.
The White House said after the president spoke that some of the maintenance includes work on the building's structural, heating and cooling, plumbing, electrical, fire protection and technical stage systems. Work on the building's exterior, security standards and parking are also included.
Daravi, the Kennedy Center spokesperson, declined comment when asked how the closure would affect the annual Mark Twain Award and Kennedy Center Honors events this year.
Trump said last October, also on social media, that the venue would stay open during construction. But on Monday he said that plan was no longer feasible.
“I was thinking maybe there’s a way of doing it simultaneously but there really isn’t, and we’re going to have something that when it opens it’s going to be brand new, beautiful," Trump said.
“The steel will all be checked out because it’ll be fully exposed,” he said. “It’s been up for a long time, but as anybody knows it was in very bad shape. Wasn’t kept well, before I got there,” he said. “So we’re going to make it, I think there won’t be anything like it in the country.”
The Kennedy Center opened in 1971.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who in November opened an investigation into the Kennedy Center's financial management, said the planned closure is part of Trump's “demolition tour of Washington.” Whitehouse is the senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees public buildings, and is an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center's board.
Since Trump returned to the presidency, the Kennedy Center is one of many Washington landmarks that he has sought to overhaul in his second term.
He demolished the White House East Wing and launched a massive $400 million ballroom project, is actively pursuing building a triumphal arch on the other side the Arlington Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial, and has plans for Washington Dulles International Airport.
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Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York and Steven Sloan in Washington contributed to this report.
A woman walks outside The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
A bronze sculpture of President John F. Kennedy is displayed in the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
