Georgia Southern Freshman Football Player Dead, Cause of Death Unclear

A football in a stock photograph. Ben Hershey/Unsplash

A freshman on the Georgia Southern football team has died, the school announced on Oct. 21.

Georgia Southern said it received a report that Jordan Wiggins, a freshman lineman from Tallahassee, Florida, had died.

The school didn’t say how Wiggins perished.

“The Georgia Southern Athletics Department has received a report of the death of student-athlete Jordan Wiggins,” the university’s athletic department said in a statement.

“Our thoughts are with the student’s family, friends, and classmates. We will provide further information when it becomes available.”

According to Wiggins’s team biography, he was 18 and was majoring in Electrical Engineering.

Wiggins was a star at Amos P. Godby High School in Tallahassee before joining Georgia Southern. He was named to the All Big-Bend team and recorded 73 pancakes and just two sacks allowed in his senior year.

“I felt like they were a real family and when I came to visit there [sic] campus I felt like they welcomed me into there [sic] family,” Wiggins wrote when announcing his commitment.

He hadn’t played a game with Georgia Southern before his death.

Among those reacting to the news was the Georgia Southern radio network, which wrote in a statement: “Heartbreaking news tonight from Eagle Nation with the passing of Freshman O-Lineman Jordan Wiggins. From our entire crew, our thoughts and condolences go out to Jordan’s family and the Eagle Football family.”

Georgia Southern head coach Chad Lunsford shared Wiggins’s commitment post and three emojis, including a face shedding a tear and hands in prayer.

“He never wanted to do anything if it didn’t make someone else happy,” Godby head coach Brandon McCray, who was Wiggins’s offensive line coach for two years, told the Tallahassee Democrat. “He was always there for his friends. He would do anything for his linemen. He loved football, but even he did that because it made his friends happy.”

After Wiggins’s mother died in 2017, McCray’s mother took Wiggins in.

“That was like my adopted son. I coached with him for two years and against all his brothers for years,” McCray said. “I’m still in shock. I don’t know what to think. I’ve still got a lot of his stuff here at my house. I’m just trying to be here for my mom and all our players.”