Selection Sort Method?

I'm trying to make a selection sort method that will sort a list of Strings alphabetically.

I have a test list of Strings like so:

Joe, Steve, Oscar, Drew, Evan, Brian, Ryan, Adam, Zachary, Jane, Doe, Susan, Fred, Billy-Bob, Cindy, Mildred, Joseph, Hammer, Hank, Dennis, Barbara

However, whenever I run the method, the element that should go last, Zachary, in this case, ends up getting moved to the front for some reason. I'm not sure why.

I tried changing what the first element was initialized to, to the variable i as that would logically work as well, but it ends up missing the first element in the list.

Java Code:

public static void selectionStringAscendingSort (String[] words){
int i, j, first;
String temp;
for ( i = 1; i < words.length; i++ ) {
first = 0; //initialize to subscript of first element
for(j = i; j < words.length; j ++){ //locate smallest element between positions 1 and i.
if( words[ j ].compareTo(words[ first ]) <0 )
first = j;
}
temp = words[ first ]; //swap smallest found with element in position i.
words[ first ] = words[ i ];
words[ i ] = temp;
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(words));
}
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(words));
} mh_sh_highlight_all('java');