Clarence “Pooh Bear” Williams, a fullback who played on Florida State University’s national championship football team as a freshman and played one season in the NFL, died Thursday in a car crash. He was 47.
Williams died near his hometown of Crescent City, where he had been a star player and high school coach, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
He coached at his alma mater from 2015 to 2020 and was a defensive backs coach at Palatka High School during the 2021-22 school year, according to The Osceola. His death was first reported by the Palatka High School football team’s Twitter account and was later confirmed by the Palatka Daily News.
It is with a heavy heart I inform the Panther community that we lost a fellow Panther today. Coach Pooh Bear Williams is a dear friend, mentor, and brother. Prayers to the family, the Crescent City community, and loved ones. Pooh Bear will be greatly missed.
— Palatka Panthers Football (@PalatkaPanthers) February 17, 2022
The 6-foot-1, 285-pound running back also played appeared in three games for the Buffalo Bills in 1998, according to Pro Football Reference.
Williams rushed for 5,090 yards while playing for Crescent City, which at the time was the seventh-best total in Florida high school history, the Democrat reported.
“When I say everybody loved him, everybody loved him,” Palatka High School coach Fred Turner told The Osceola. “I never met anybody who said a bad word about him. The kids loved him. The coaches loved him. He was just a really good person. In every one of our pictures that we have of him, he always had an arm around the kid. That’s what he did. He would yell at them, he would coach them up. But he’d always put an arm around him, build him back up, coach him, teach him, tell him what he did wrong and try to correct it. Just a super good human being.”
Williams, who was named “Pooh Bear” by his grandmother, averaged 6.8 yards on 39 carries during his freshman season at FSU when the Seminoles won the program’s first national championship, according to College Football Reference. He injured his knee during the 1994 season but scored 12 touchdowns in 1995.
Former FSU football player and Crescent City coach dies in car crash https://t.co/4tB8bXAbM9 pic.twitter.com/mFU3a2Ri1L
— Palatka Daily News (@PalatkaDaily) February 17, 2022
He finished his college career with 472 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns on 109 carries.
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