Former Titans linebacker Avery Williamson found his passion bringing water ice to Tennessee: ‘This is legit Philly water ice’

Roughly four miles from Nissan Stadium, where the Eagles will play the Tennessee Titans on Sunday, there will be a little piece of Philly in Nashville.

Ahead of Sunday’s game, at Corner Bar South on Nolensville Pike, former Titans linebacker Avery Williamson will be selling his own version of Philadelphia’s signature water ice, using a recipe he bought from Philly native David Gavin, the owner of Blazin Flavorz, a North Philly restaurant known for its gourmet pretzels and creative water ice flavors.

“This is not knockoff water ice,” Williamson said. “This is legit Philly water ice. We had a number of Philly people pull up and try, and they gave me the stamp of the approval. So I’m excited for everybody to try it out.”

Williamson opened his water ice company, Tennessee Crush Water Ice, in April 2025. After retiring from the NFL in 2021, the Kentucky alumnus was looking for something else to be passionate about. And after years of trial and error, he found it in the form of water, sugar, and fruit juice.

“It’s something that’s gotten me out of my funk of being five years removed,” Williamson said. “It’s gotten me out of that funk and just that mindset of not accomplishing anything, even though I’ve accomplished a lot. But as a person that’s been at that top level, when you’re done, you’re like, ‘Now I’m at the bottom.’

“I think the biggest thing when I got done playing was that it was an identity crisis. And you’ve done something for so long, so when you take off the pads, it’s painful. It’s a painful process. You want people to respect you in a different sense now. I was like, ‘OK, I can’t play football. So I want people to see me as a businessperson.’”

After seven seasons in the NFL, Williamson tried to find his next passion. First, he started a YouTube channel called Tailgate 54. After one year, he started looking into working in financial services. Then, he started a landscaping business, coached high school football, worked in trucking, and opened a building for multipurpose space.

He didn’t discover his true passion until 2024, when he attended Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith’s celebrity softball game.

“I was two years removed from the game and was just trying to figure everything out,” Williamson said. “I was getting ready to open up a business back here in my hometown [of Milan, Tenn.]. I was like, ‘I really don’t want to go.’ But I ended up doing it. I just wasn’t in the best mood. It was a weird time in my life, and so we were going to the softball tournament that day, riding to the stadium, and [Ryan Sanders and Lauren Westerman] were talking about water ice. I’m sitting back in my chair, like, ‘What are they talking about?’ And they kept talking about it. So, I finally asked, ‘What are y’all saying?’ And one of the ladies was like, ‘I’m saying water ice’ and I was like ‘What is that?’”

On that trip, he tried his first water ice: a “red flavor” from Rita’s.

“I was like ‘Yo, what did I just eat?’ I wasn’t expecting that at all,” Williamson said. “It just blew my mind how good it was.”

A year later, Williamson was thinking of new stores to go into his building in Milan, which is in western Tennessee. That’s when plans for Tennessee Crush Water Ice were set into motion. He reached out to Sanders, who put him in touch with Gavin, who has owned Blazin Flavorz for 14 years.

“In this culture, a lot of us safeguard, and it’s not too many opportunities for minorities to make a way out,” Gavin said. “I tried to make sure I was going to be that bridge for the culture to make sure I did not safeguard stuff. So once he retired from the NFL, he’s trying to look for something because most of the people when they retire, they don’t know what to get into after that. So I told them this is a great opportunity and Tennessee would be wide open for them.”

After Williamson bought Gavin’s recipe, he purchased a water ice machine, and his wife, Kelli, found a food truck they could use to sell water ice on the go while using one of the spaces in his building as the company’s factory.

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Williamson opened the business in April 2025, setting up their bright orange trailer in a Kroger parking lot — before the truck was wrapped in Titans blue with cartoon images of Williamson decorating the sides.

“Nobody knew who I was, incognito,” Williamson said. “I didn’t have a sign. I had nothing. And then a guy and his son came up, they were asking what it was and I was like, ‘It’s water ice.’ They tried it, and he was like, ‘Man, this stuff is really good.’ And that’s when I was like, ‘We got something.’”

Throughout the summer, the Williamsons worked festivals and end-of-year school events before getting into high school football games. But winter was a dead period for the company.

“I was about to burn the trailer last November,” Williamson said. “I was so mad. Things just weren’t going as planned. I told my wife, I’m done with it, and someone told me not to do it. But I was going to take it in the middle of the field, just light it on fire.

“I was almost ... ready to quit. Like, people looked at me crazy. I know people were probably like, ‘Yo, this man got to be broke.’ But I was genuinely just trying to find a hustle, trying to find something that I could wake up and be excited about. And because I’m retired, you’re looking for that thing to really get you going. So I know people looked at me crazy. But, I just kept on pushing, pushing, contacting people.”

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That’s when Williamson decided to reach out to his former Kentucky teammate, Edward Berry, who is now an agent for CAA Sports. Berry helped Williamson secure a spot at this year’s NFL draft in Pittsburgh.

“That was a huge boost and momentum shift leading to this year. I mean, we served over 2,000 people,” Williamson said. “We had a lot of success, we got some great content, and it boosted the business back here. So, I was like, ‘If I’m going to do this, I just need to really attack the media space.’ So we started doing more content and just started pushing and pushing it hard.”

Since then they’ve expanded to schools with premade cups, festivals, Kentucky’s Venture River Water Park, and colleges like Austin Peay, Bethel University, and Kentucky.

“Football taught me the grind. It’s every day, it’s nonstop, and it’s the same in business,” Williamson said. “I thought I was going to jump out and start making money like that. But no, In had to literally pay my dues to figure out what I wanted to do and find what excited me. And water ice is just something that excites me. I love getting into these events and seeing people try.”

As of what’s next for Tennessee Crush Water Ice, Williamson hopes to close a deal with a major college, he wants to build a drive-in for his water ice factory, he’s hoping to find a spot in Nashville to sell from, and he’s thinking of expanding to even more states.

But for now, he’s just grateful to have found his passion outside of football.

“It’s truly amazing to see what you can accomplish when you put in the work, the time, the effort,” Williamson said. “When I was done playing, I just walked away from it. I wish I would have had a game plan. I didn’t. I tell guys to get a game plan together. Football is not forever. Find a passion, find it early, and just work at it.”

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