A standout NCAA track athlete is dead at 21 after collapsing “suddenly” following a competition.<\/p>\n
Graycen Vargo, a standout distance runner at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, died following a medical emergency during a Friday track competition in New Orleans.<\/p>\n
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The distance runner, who had just received the Eagle Excellence Award for Cross Country, collapsed at the Red River Athletic Conference Track and Field Championships hosted by Xavier University. He was given immediate medical attention on site, before being transferred to a hospital.<\/p>\n
Vargo died at 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thoughts are with Graycen\u2019s family, teammates, and friends as they deal with this unimaginable loss,\u201d said A&M-Texarkana President Dr. Ross Alexander. \u201cGraycen was a respected member of the student body and a beloved member of the Cross Country and Track and Field Teams. His presence will be greatly missed by the entire university community.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cOn behalf of the Eagle athletic department, I want to convey our heartfelt sorrow at the loss of Graycen Vargo,\u201d said Director of Athletics Ryan Wall. \u201cOur prayers are with the Vargo family and everyone who knew Graycen as they go through this difficult time.”<\/p>\n
Vargo was a junior computer science major from Dallas, Texas.<\/p>\n
An investigation into his passing is underway.<\/p>\n
May he rest in peace.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published by The Spun<\/a> on Apr 29, 2026, where it first appeared in the Olympics<\/a> section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A standout NCAA track athlete is dead at 21 after collapsing “suddenly” following a competition. Graycen Vargo, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20292,101176,101179,27,101177,29,28,101180,101178],"class_list":["post-272307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-cross-country","tag-graycen-vargo","tag-medical-emergency","tag-texas","tag-texas-am-university-texarkana","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-track-athlete","tag-xavier-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}