{"id":299607,"date":"2026-05-19T11:23:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/299607\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:23:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:23:46","slug":"sam-houston-state-defensive-back-william-davis-dead-at-22-team-mourns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/299607\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Houston State defensive back William Davis dead at 22, team mourns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n  <\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">William Davis, a football player for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/ncaa\/sam-houston-state-bearkats\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sam Houston State Bearkats<\/a> who transferred to the school after playing one year with the West Virginia Mountaineers, has died. He was 22.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Sam Houston State head coach Phil Longo released a statement confirming the defensive back\u2019s death on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/link.podtrac.com\/dmwdd_article\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON&#8217;T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Sam-Houston-State-William-Davis-051826-1.jpeg\" alt=\"William Davis in pads\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>William Davis participating in spring workouts at Sam Houston State. (Sam Houston State University)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the loss of Will Davis,&#8221; Longo said in a statement. &#8220;Will was a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/college-football-player-18-dead-two-days-after-collapsing-during-workout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">beloved member of our Bearkat<\/a> football family here at Sam Houston who touched the lives of everyone he knew.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Will was an upbeat, positive, passionate young man who will be sincerely missed. Tanya, the kids and I are praying for Will&#8217;s family during this difficult time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Davis started his collegiate career at Virginia Union. He played 19 games with the school and recorded five interceptions and one touchdown. He transferred to West Virginia after the 2024 season and played one game for the Mountaineers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He was set to compete for a roster spot at Sam Houston State. He graduated from West Virginia in 2025 with a masters of science in sports management. He expressed excitement about continuing his collegiate career with the Bearkats.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sam Houston felt like home from the moment I first set foot on campus,&#8221; he said, via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DU_RwyAkdbm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Nilson Sports<\/a>. &#8220;As a Virginia kid that had played every snap of football in my life within driving distance of home, it was important to me that I\u2019d play somewhere where I fit seamlessly into the culture if I was going to be so distant geographically.<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/West-Virginia-Williams-Davis-051826-1.jpeg\" alt=\"William Davis in a portrait\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Former Western Virginia Mountaineers defensive back William Davis died in May 2026. (West Virginia University)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ability to play for Coach Dovonte Edwards, someone with experience playing in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/sports\/nfl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NFL<\/a> that can show me the blueprint of what it looks like to become the type of player who can achieve success at the highest level, was a motivating factor for me as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/foxnews.onelink.me\/xLDS?pid=AppArticleLink&amp;af_dp=foxnewsaf%3A%2F%2F&amp;af_web_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fapps-products\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Davis\u2019 cause of death was not announced.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Gaydos is a senior editor for Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! William Davis, a football player for the Sam Houston State&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,1771,4295,2645,9814],"class_list":["post-299607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-fb","tag-sam-houston-state-bearkats","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299607","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=299607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}