If an out-of-stater were to picture Texas high school football, their minds would conjure up a place like Mickey Mayne Tiger Stadium in Daingerfield. All 2,500-plus townsfolk cram onto the metal bleachers on a Friday night, creating the big-time atmosphere that can only be found in a community this small. From August to December, their world revolves around the Daingerfield Tigers. 

It’s in this chaos that Mason Williams finds his peace. The 6-foot-4, 180-pound senior is a two-way star for Daingerfield who’s destined for college football. For those three hours, the real world - with all its pain and loss - melts away. It only threatens to creep back in when the whistle blows and he notices the town’s cheers. That’s when the entire stadium’s clapping reminds him of the one person who’s not. 

Williams’s half-sister, Taylor Evans, was always his biggest fan in the crowd, which makes playing without her that much harder. They began living together with their mother, Ashley Franklin, when Mason was in sixth grade. Taylor, six years older than Mason, was a blend of his older sister and mother figure. She was the first person to ever let him drive a car, clowning around in the passenger seat as he steered their blue Nissan Altima around a massive yard. She should’ve been here for so many more milestones.

Taylor Evans passed away on April 16, 2022, after she was shot in the back during a pasture party. She was 19 years old, survived by her mother, toddler son, and an eighth-grade Mason. The day after her death, Mason posted a 7-on-7 football highlight on his X account with the caption “LLT” for "Long Live Taylor." That afternoon was the first time he’d played without her cheering from the stands. But that post was a promise: Taylor would be with Mason for the rest of his football career. 

“Ever since she passed, I’ve continued to push myself harder and harder,” Mason said. “Now, I’ve got someone to do it for.” 

Mason sees football as a way to honor Taylor’s memory. His determination on the field mirrors Taylor’s pursuit to provide for her young son, Drayce. Taylor took nursing classes in college and held down a full-time job with the highway department in Linden, all while raising a child. 

Mason, a proven playmaker on a state semifinalist program by his sophomore year, was athletically ahead of most kids his age. But he knew he needed to increase his speed if he wanted to reach his ultimate goal of DI football. So that offseason, he spent his days running, broad jumping and backpedaling up the hills near Daingerfield’s campus. 

“He came back his junior year, and I was like, ‘Who is that?’” Daingerfield head coach Davin Nelson said.

It was Mason, but it was also Taylor. And the farther away time moves from her death, the more the family wants people to understand how she lived.

“The more that I talk about her, the better I feel,” Ashley said. “At first, I was holding everything in. I didn’t want to mention her name; it would make me so sad. But now with her son, we try to let him know who his mother was.”

Drayce is now five years old, with the same goofball personality as his mother. There are certain expressions he makes that make him look just like her. It’s in these moments where Mason feels the call to step in as the parent his sister cannot be.

“I want him to grow up not making the same mistakes I made when I was growing up,” Mason said. 

Mason speaks as if he’s a much older man than 17. He became the man of the house as a boy, and the weight of that responsibility once threatened to crush him. As a kid, Mason was quieter and reserved compared to Taylor’s outgoing, bubbly personality. But he withdrew further in the weeks after the tragedy.   

“I really got worried,” Nelson said. “I was like, ‘This kid has a chance to go do something. But this is something that will break somebody.” 

But the Daingerfield community wouldn’t let it do that to Mason. Daingerfield isn’t just a town where everybody knows everybody. It’s a town where everybody is related to at least someone. Mason has several cousins on the team. Taylor’s death rocked Mason and his immediate family, but the ripple effects were felt everywhere. So, the coaching staff banded together to conduct frequent home visits or stay after school to help provide a ride or an ear to listen. 

Ashley knew her son preferred to bottle up all the emotions raging inside of him, so she pushed him to get out of the house and use football as an outlet. The more Mason poured himself into his football career, the more he realized how it could honor Taylor - and provide for the family she left behind. As a junior, Mason was a starting receiver who played in spurts at cornerback. This past offseason, he honed his defensive back skills to become a two-way starter, making him more attractive to college football teams. 

“Going into the springtime, he really put a lot of effort into his DB play,” Nelson said. “I think that came from understanding, ‘Wide receivers my height are a dime a dozen. But cornerbacks at my height aren’t.’ Once he decided to make that commitment, he flipped what he was doing on offense to defense.”

Mason still has a few more goals he wants to accomplish before graduating from Daingerfield High School. He wants to win a state championship in either football, basketball or track, adding a trophy he helped earn into Daingerfield’s already stacked case. But even if he does that, Mason’s impact on this community won’t be represented by hardware. It’s seen in the way the elementary school kids rush up to him after games, their heads rocking back to look up at their hero. One day soon, they’ll realize they should be looking up to him for a lot more reasons than football.  

“There’s somebody else out there that something tragic has happened to them,” Nelson said. “They need to understand that it’s going to get better, because a lot of times, people don’t see the fact that it’s going to get better.”