ARKADELPHIA, AR – An Arkansas community is mourning following the tragic death of an Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) Tigers defensive lineman barely into his 20’s who mysteriously collapsed and died on Sunday.
The passing of Clark Yarbrough, 21, was announced by the school in a Twitter post. The school did not provide information on the cause of death.
Yarbrough, a senior at OBU who stood 6’1” tall and weighed 280 pounds, originally came from Sachse, Texas, where he played on his high school team for the OBU Tigers since 2019.
The senior came to OBU by way of Rowlett, Texas, where he played football at Sachse High School. Yarbrough had been with the Tigers since 2019 and was an All-Great American Conference honorable mention selection in 2021, recording 27 tackles for the season.
His final game was last Thursday when the Tigers defeated Oklahoma Baptist 42-32; Yarbrough helped his team score the win by hitting two tackles.
While no cause of death has been revealed as of yet, the suddenness of the terrible event seems to tie into a recent trend sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic of rising numbers of “mystery deaths.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has noted that since February 1, 2020, there have been 942,431 “excess deaths” in the U.S., over and above the norm before the pandemic.
J. Scott Davison, CEO of insurance company OneAmerica, said that “Death rates are up 40 percent over what they were pre-pandemic” among their policy holders, noting that those being affected are working-aged people between the ages of 18 and 64.
The CDC has stated that these “excess deaths” are attributed to either COVID-19 “directly or indirectly.” However, some commenting on Yarbrough’s passing on social media questioned if the youth was inoculated against COVID-19, alleging that the vaccine could be to blame given its history of side effects in some individuals.
Comments are closed.