Former Alabama defensive lineman Jesse Williams is working to help others follow a path that he blazed from Australia to college football in the United States. It’s an opportunity that he calls “life changing.”

But Williams had another life-changing experience while on his football journey. Between his second and third NFL seasons with the Seattle Seahawks, Williams was diagnosed with papillary renal cell carcinoma type 2, already at stage 3, and on May 28, 2015, Williams had one of his kidneys removed.

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Yet Williams took the field on Aug. 14, 2015, for the Seahawks’ preseason opener against the Denver Broncos.

“One thing that sticks with me,” Williams said during an appearance on “The Man That Can Project Podcast,” “and, hopefully, I pray sticks with me for the rest of my life, coach Nick Saban, one of the best coaches to ever coach football, was with me for years at Alabama, his thing on the 24-hour rule was the epitome of what I believe in. It was 24 hours, win or lose, we’re back to work. We don’t sit around and worry about it. We’re the best team in the country. Sit around and worry about a loss or a win when we have to win next week? Every game is important.

“When I had cancer, I went into surgery like it was a game day. I dressed like it was a game day. I had headphones in. I told my parents, the day before, ‘Don’t talk to me. I’m going to treat it like a game. I’m going in there to do what I need to do.’ And 24 hours after that, I didn’t need to think about it no more. I just needed to think about right now is how I needed to move forward.”

Williams has discussed his battle with cancer during two recent media appearances – “The Man That Can Project Podcast” and “The AL Recruiting Power 5 Podcast.”

Williams said he could not stick with the one-year recovery timeline set for him and aimed instead for Seattle’s preseason opener.

“I set myself a timeline of seven weeks, five days,” Williams said. “I remember sitting in the surgery, getting out. I was supposed to be in there like four or five days. Soon as I got out, I was like, ‘I need to get the hell out of here.’ They said, ‘You have to take the cather out,’ which is the worst part of having any surgery. They took that out, and you have to walk around the ward twice, so I did that before my family even got back the next day because I had the surgery at night. So my family got back, and they’ve got flowers and balloons. I had meals packed like I was going to be there five days. And I was laying in my clothes on top of the sheets waiting. I was like, ‘You’re here. Oh, I’m ready to go.’”

Williams reported for the Seahawks’ offseason program the day after his surgery.

“They gave me a date,” Williams said. “If my scars healed before this date, I could start practicing. So I was out there doing drills, and this is within four or five weeks of having my kidney removed. So people are treating me like I’m dead, and I’m a ghost. Casper the Friendly Ghost floating around with a helmet and shoulder pads on. And I hated it. I was like, ‘Stop going soft on me.’”

Williams played in all four of Seattle’s 2015 preseason games.

“As a young man, I got to go through a lot to develop my inside and who I am, what I believe in and what I believe in myself,” Williams said, “so in situations like that, I was unshakable. My person inside, my belief and my strength was so deep in the Earth that I could not be moved. The storms, the waves, the adversity, nothing could shake me. I was untouchable at that time.

“And that’s just the attitude that I’ve got to take into things whether it’s going to go good or not. I could have died. There were plenty of things that could have went wrong, but I choose to focus on the things that I can control. Things I can’t control and dying, I could die this afternoon. I don’t need to waste any time thinking about it, though. I just want to focus on the things that I can control.”

Williams said his quick comeback put his “body in a bad position for the rest of the season.”

Williams spent the 2015 season on the Seahawks’ non-football injury list. He got medical clearance to return to football on Jan. 28, 2016, but the Seahawks released him on March 8, 2016.

Williams started at defensive tackle on Alabama’s 2011 and 2012 BCS national-championship teams. He had arthroscopic knee surgery following his senior season. When his problem persisted, he had another surgery in August 2013, causing him to spend his first NFL season on injured reserve with Seattle, which had chosen him in the fifth round of the 2013 NFL Draft.

Williams suffered another knee injury during Seattle’s training camp on July 30, 2014, and spent the 2014 season on injured reserve, too.

Although he never played in a regular-season game for Seattle, he received a Super Bowl ring as a member of the team that won the NFL championship with a 43-8 victory over the Denver Broncos on Feb. 2, 2014.

After Williams played for Saban at Alabama, he was coached by Pete Carroll in Seattle.

“On the outside, they look like polar opposites,” Williams said on “The AL Recruiting Power 5 Podcast.” “I don’t think they’re the same. There’s probably some space in between them, but they are very similar in their approach and their outcomes.”

Williams said the differences took some getting used to after he entered the NFL.

“There’s a lot of funny interactions I had when I first got to the NFL because I was not prepared for what Pete Carroll was like, like even going to team meetings,” Williams said. “They would have a basketball hoop up there. They got music there. Everyone is talking loud. Everyone is moving around, and it was just me sitting stationary in my chair, not moving one bit. I would say for the first two weeks of being in Seattle in the meetings, team or positional, I thought they were trying to trick me. I was like, ‘I am not falling for this. This can’t be how it is.’

“You go to a Bama meeting, and like if you cough too loud, people are turning around, ‘What is this guy’s deal?’ especially if Coach is in there. I tell people he changes the atmosphere in the room, especially those team meetings. He comes in there, and it’s just, damn, it’s quiet.”

Living again in Australia, Williams will hold seven Jesse Williams Development Camps across the country over a 12-day span starting on Monday for Gridiron Australia.

Gridiron Australia will select 10 prospects who will be taken to the United States on a tour of some of the top football programs.

“No one helped me at all,” Williams said. “It was pretty much back against the wall with myself and my family, so it feels unjust to myself not to be able to at least offer the experience, anecdotal experience, I have.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.