William Gates

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For other persons named William Gates, see William Gates (disambiguation).

For the founder of Microsoft, see Bill Gates.

William Gates (b. ca. 1972) is an American former high-school and college basketball player and a subject of the 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams.

Gates and Arthur Agee were teenagers from the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago who hoped to hone their basketball talent into professional careers with the NBA. The documentary followed them through their recruitment by St. Joseph High School and into their college years. At St. Joe's, Gates suffered a knee injury which limited his playing and recruitment offers.

Gates is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he played college basketball.

In 2001, Gates worked out with Michael Jordan in preparation for Jordan's comeback and was offered a tryout with the Washington Wizards, but injured his foot; a tryout with the Chicago Bulls resulted in an offer to be on the reserve team, but Gates turned that down.

His brother Curtis Gates, also seen in the film, was murdered in 2001. As of 2004, Gates was a minister with the Living Faith Community Center in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago, where he grew up.