William was born and raised in Washington Heights where he spent his youth playing basketball and football. While his favorite sport was basketball, he always had a love for the water. When he would go on family vacations to the Dominican Republic, William would always go enthusiastically into any body of water, from lakes and streams to rivers and the ocean. When William was 5 years old he almost drowned on a visit to a water park but luckily a lifeguard jumped in and rescued him. Years later, on a separate trip to a water park, he almost had another accident in the water but this time he was able to skip his way towards the shallow end of the pool on his own. By the time he had reached his freshman year of high school, and despite his close encounters with the water, William had decided to join the swim team instead of playing basketball and has not stopped swimming since. William plans to get a degree in criminology and hopes to someday become a detective.