Toya Jones, a former Texas A&M football and track star, died on Thursday after suffering a heart attack last weekend.
Jones was 49 years old and had been placed in hospice care on Wednesday, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Jones had been a star defensive back for the Aggies and made a game-saving play during the 1998 Big 12 title game against Kansas State and was one of the best track and field athletes in the Lone Star State as a high schooler.
“Today is a very difficult day for me and so many others. I have to say goodbye to one of my closest friends for more than 20 years,” former MLB pitcher and close friend to Jones, Randy Keisler, wrote on Facebook. “Toya, you were the funniest guy I’ve ever known and your personality was one of a kind. Your positive outlook on life, your smile, sense of humor and always making anyone around you laugh and feel better just being with you was an awesome gift that you possessed. I could be down and out and you would make me laugh or somehow just feel better with your infectious smile and sense of humor. I love you brother and it’s a shame that the world is losing you today.”
Jones was at Texas A&M from 1995-1998.
His senior season was the last time the Aggies won a conference title.
The Aggies had come back in the fourth quarter, but it was nearly for nothing after a 54-yard Hail Mary pass found a Kansas State receiver with the clock running out.
Jones made the tackle on the 1-yard line and Texas A&M went on to win in double overtime.
Jones really left his mark on the sport of track & field, being inducted into the Texas Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2020 for a high school career that included winning 17 medals at the state meet and three state championships. In college, Jones ran the second leg on the 1997 NCAA champion 400-meter relay team.
He briefly spent time in NFL training camps but never played in a regular-season game.
Jones played two seasons in the CFL and a season in the XFL.
“They say the good die young and Toya was definitely one of the good ones,” Jones’ college football teammate and roommate Sirr Parker wrote on Facebook. “A 31-year friendship taken away at the blink of an eye. My college roommate, my teammate, my friend and my brother was one of the greatest guys you’d meet, with a smile that could light up the room and a personality that kept us all laughing. He was always unapologetically Toya and that’s what made him unique.”
