Former Texas A&M football and track star Toya Jones died Thursday. The 49-year-old suffered a heart attack last weekend and was placed in hospice care Wednesday.
With Jones, who played defensive back and ran track at Texas A&M from 1995-98, in hospice care, friends and family gathered around him this week to say goodbye.
"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," Randy Keisler, a former Major League Baseball pitcher and close friend of Jones, wrote on Facebook on Thursday. "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."
On the football field, Jones is best known for his tackle that saved the Aggies' Big 12 championship his senior year.
In the 1998 Big 12 title game, Texas A&M came roaring back from 15 points down in the fourth quarter against undefeated Kansas State, but nearly suffered a heartbreaking loss when the Wildcats' Michael Bishop completed a 54-yard Hail Mary to Everett Burnett as time expired in regulation, but Jones was there to make the tackle at the 1-yard line. The Aggies went on to win in double overtime and claim what still stands as their last conference championship.
"What a great guy. This is so sad," R.C. Slocum, who recruited and coached Jones, wrote on Facebook. "He was a special athlete and person. God rest his soul."
Jones spent time in training camp with the San Francisco 49ers in 1999, Denver Broncos in 2000 and Houston Texans in 2002, but never appeared in an NFL regular season game. He played for the XFL's Birmingham Thunderbolts in 2001 and spent two seasons in the Canadian Football League with the British Columbia Lions.
Jones was an even bigger star on the track where he still stands as one of the best high school track athletes in state history.
At Refugio High School, Jones, who was inducted into the Texas Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2020, won a record 17 medals in his career at the state meet - including 13 golds - and led his team to three state championships. He won 147 points at the state meet in his career at Refugio, including 45 as a sophomore when he won gold in all five events in which he competed (100 meters, 200 meters, long jump, triple jump and 400-meter relay). He's still one of only two boys to ever win five gold medals at the Texas state meet.
Jones was a sprinter and a long jumper at Texas A&M and ran the second leg on the Aggies' 1997 NCAA champion 400-meter relay team, which went undefeated that season with wins at the Texas Relays, Penn Relays and the Big 12 Championships, as well as the NCAAs.
When he was done with sports, Jones had a successful career in sales in the Houston area. He worked at Houston's Sagis Diagnostics, then founded Sagis Transport in Sugar Land in 2017. The company was honored by Texas A&M's McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship in 2023 and 2024 as one of the Aggie 100, which honors the top 100 business owned or operated by Texas A&M graduates.
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There’s more to Houston with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at Toya Jones, a former Texas A&M football player and Texas high school track legend, dead at 49.