Former Rider player dies as result of practice accident

By Nick Gholson
Posted March 29, 2010 at 12:56 p.m. , updated March 29, 2010 at 4:31 p.m.

WICHITA FALLS — Scott Ponder spent much of Monday morning just driving around in his truck with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He felt lost.

It was the Rider football coach’s way of mourning the death of a player.

When he left Harris Memorial Hospital in Fort Worth on Sunday, Ponder knew he had just said his final goodbye to Zach Shaver.

“He’s going to die,” the coach said, trying hard but unable to hold back the tears.

The 18-year-old Shaver — a 2009 Rider graduate — died Monday morning.

Tarleton State head coach Cary Fowler was at the hospital when the announcement was made.

“My guide is God, which is good, because there aren’t many coaches you can call who know how to deal with something like this,” Fowler said.

Shaver, a redshirt freshman for Tarleton, suffered a head injury during a spring practice in Stephenville on Saturday.

The 6-2, 280-pound defensive tackle got tangled up with an offensive lineman on a play. The two players fell over the back of a pile with the offensive lineman on top of Shaver, who hit his head on the turf and never recovered.

“It looked like an ordinary football play,” said Brad Keith, sports editor of the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, who was at the practice. “An assistant coach said that the offensive lineman said Shaver fell limp in his arms.

The young Wichitan was air-lifted by helicopter to the Fort Worth hospital and never regained consciousness.

“He was a winner on and off the field,” Fowler said. “He had a big smile on his face all the time, but when he was on the football field, there was no give-up station in him. He played his guts out on every play.”

“He was a great kid, and I loved him dearly,” Ponder said. “He was so positive and so well-liked. He loved people and had a lot of friends. This is a tragic blow to everyone.”

Shaver was a first-team all-district and honorable mention all-state defensive tackle for the Raiders his senior year.

In his two seaons playing on the varsity, Rider won 20 games and a pair of district chapionships.

Eric Ward — a redshirt freshman at Texas Tech — struggled to deal with the premature death of his high school teammate.

“I don’t want to believe it,” he said. “When you are family for ROHO, you are family for life.”

Ward said Shaver’s mother had been his teacher in elementary school before he and her son met at McNiel Junior High.

“He was always laughing and being funny,” he recalled. “Back when I was trying to decide whether to go to OU or Tech, Zach told me to go to Tech. He was an influence on me coming here.”

Ward remembers James Chambers, Tyler Tackett and Shaver spending a lot of time in the weight room together to become better players.

“They were all like brothers. You would see them in there working every day,” he said.

Fowler, who was the defensive coordinator for Midwestern State from 2001 through 2007, knew Shaver long before he ever coached him.

“When we were in Wichita Falls, I lived next to Cole Vitolo. They were in the fifth grade, and we all used to play football in my front yard,” he said.

Vitolo was Shaver’s teammate at Rider and Tarleton State.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of this young student-athlete,” Tarleton athletic director Lonn Reisman said in a

press release by the school Monday afternoon. “This is a tragic loss for the Shaver family, and my heart goes out to them. I am thankful for our athletic training staff, the emergency medical teams and the hospital staff for their professional response.”

“It is always difficult to lose one of our Tarleton family members, especially when they are so young,” Tarleton President F. Dominic Dottavio said in the release. “(Wife) Lisette and I will keep his family in our thoughts and prayers.”

Shaver is survived by his parents, Robbie and Jennifer, and a sister, Emily.

Arrangements for funeral services are pending.