Former Cocke Co. deputy, firefighter, teacher, dies at 29 after cancer battle

COSBY, Tenn. ( WATE ) — Many people in the Cocke County community are mourning a former sheriff’s deputy, volunteer firefighter, and teacher.

Ward Williams died Tuesday at the age of 29 after a lengthy battle with cancer.

“I’m amazed at the number of people that know him and loved him and respected him and amazed at the people he brought to the Lord, through his actions,” his dad, Duran Williams, said.

Williams began serving as a volunteer firefighter at the Cosby Volunteer Fire Department when he was in high school. After he graduated, he attended college and started working at the Cocke County Sheriff’s Office.

“He was working as a clerk there in the courthouse for the sheriff’s department and that is when his cancer developed in his leg and he had to have his leg removed,” his dad said.

Williams got a prosthetic leg and was cancer-free for a few years. During that time he went back to school and got his carpentry credentials to teach building trades. He ended up teaching at Cosby High School, his alma mater.

He was the head football coach, and was set to become the baseball coach, before the cancer returned.

“He asked me if I would just fully take it over, and I did, but I told him I was doing it for him and that I wasn’t the head coach,” Travis Sane, Cosby baseball coach, said. “He was still the head coach, was the head coach, will be the head coach, and always will be the head coach.”

This time, Williams had two brain tumors that required emergency surgery, which he survived. He then developed a blood cancer in his lungs. The radiation and chemotherapy eventually led to kidney problems.

“They took him off the chemo and immunotherapy and his condition just worsened, until he got so weak, he couldn’t go on,” his dad said.

Even now, Williams’ impact at Cosby High School stretches from the field to the classroom.

“He’s a legend around here now… and before,” Sane said. “And not just with sports. We started a bluegrass class this year. He loved music. He could pretty much play any kind of string instrument you put in front of him.”

It’s hard to find a place in Cosby he hasn’t made an impact on, from the football field to the Sunset Gap Community Center. His ancestors donated the land for the center, which was later dedicated as the community center and a preschool.

“His spirit animal was a buffalo, because he said, ‘I’m tough, this can’t outdo me and it’ll never drive me extinct.’ And all his friends, they’d get him Buffalo stickers, he put them on his guitar case, on his truck,” his dad said. “His friends had Buffalo stickers, that’s just kind of how they knew him. I didn’t get it for a long time why they were doing that, but it was because of his toughness. That was that was one really neat thing about Ward.”

Williams was married to a fellow Cosby High School graduate and also had two older siblings. A celebration of life will be held at a later time.

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