Virgil Williams

Virgil "Vee" Williams was a Louisiana high school football coach and former standout defensive back whose death in a September 2026 highway crash stunned the Shreveport-Bossier coaching community. Born on 28 August 1991, he lived in Bossier City and was known to players and peers as Coach Vee Will. This memorial corrects an automated mix-up that briefly attached his pending page to the Wikipedia biography of an unrelated Oscar-nominated screenwriter of the same name; the coach who died in 2026 is not that screenwriter.

Williams graduated from Evangel Christian Academy in 2010 after helping the Eagles win state championships. In the 2009 title game at the Superdome he led Evangel in rushing and made a crucial fourth-quarter interception on a two-point try by John Curtis. At Southern University he played cornerback and return specialist, earning the nickname Virgil Island for lockdown coverage, and in 2013 took first-team All-SWAC honours at both defensive back and return specialist.

After college he coached defensive backs at Bossier and Huntington under Stephen Dennis, who later called him a huge mentor to New York Giants safety and former Evangel star Ar'Darius Washington and a strong positive influence on sidelines and in the community. Williams then joined the Calvary Baptist Academy staff as defensive backs coach. He also founded Fluid Motion Training Academy, teaching defensive backs, running backs, footwork and agility. Players and fellow coaches described a great coach who was an even better man.

In the early hours of Tuesday, 15 September 2026, Williams was involved in a crash on Interstate 20 westbound near Haughton. The Bossier Parish Coroner's Office said he died at about 4:25 a.m. He was 35. Calvary superintendent Chad McDowell announced the loss on Facebook, asking the community to pray for Williams's wife LaJoya and their daughter Nova. Local outlets including KSLA, WAFB, the Shreveport-Bossier Advocate and the Bossier Press-Tribune carried the news. The crash remained under investigation without further public detail on circumstances beyond the fatal outcome.

Friends across Evangel, Southern, Bossier, Huntington and Calvary described a coach who treated mentorship as seriously as game plans. In a region where Friday nights organise entire towns, his sudden absence left empty meeting rooms and a family facing the hardest morning of their lives. Local coverage stressed prayer for LaJoya and Nova alongside the football resume that made Vee Will a familiar name on northwest Louisiana sidelines.