- Quintavis Styles, a 31-year-old Gainesville High football assistant coach, passed away suddenly after losing consciousness at school on Tuesday.
- Styles coached wide receivers and defensive backs and had joined the Gainesville football program in June, living with head coach Ashour Peera.
- This is the second Gainesville coach to die in less than six months, following assistant coach Rick Rone's death from a heart attack in April.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include quotes from players.
Tragedy has struck the Gainesville High football program again.
On Tuesday, 31-year-old Quintavis Styles, who served as offensive coordinator for the JV program and was an assistant for the varsity team, passed away unexpectedly. The cause of death is not known.
“Coach Styles lost consciousness in our office before school yesterday,” said Gainesville Athletics Director Phillip Knight. “Our school nurse and EMT’s responded very quickly and he was transported to Shands. Unfortunately, he passed away at the hospital a short time later.”
Styles, who coached wide receivers and defensive backs according to interim coach Ray Smith, moved to the area this past June and lived with first-year head coach Ashour Peera in Alachua.
“Coach Styles had only been with us a few months, but he had made a huge impact on our football program,” Knight said. “Our condolences go out to his family and friends.”
Peera, who was placed on administrative leave prior to Gainesville’s win over rival Eastside, took the news hard.
“Quintavis was like a son to me,” said Peera, who coached Styles at Gateway High School in Aurora, Colorado. “It truly breaks my heart. He was a great role model and I know the players loved having him around. He built meaningful relationships with players, faculty, the community, and my son was also very close with him as well. Our family is mourning his passing, and he will not be forgotten.”
Smith, the team’s defensive coordinator, was at the hospital when Styles passed away.
“Yesterday obviously was not my best day,” he said. “And what’s unique about yesterday was that it was my brother’s birthday and my father-in-law’s birthday, which they didn’t get a phone call from me until later in the afternoon. It was rough, man…I was there for the whole time, basically from the beginning, obviously to the end, where I went to the operating room when they worked on him.”
GHS did not practice on Tuesday but took the field on Wednesday with heavy hearts.
“Coach Styles was my position coach; he coached defensive backs, so he was really kind of like a key foundation for me because he taught me a lot of my technique,” said senior Zaire Francis, who plays strong safety and outside linebacker for the Hurricanes. “He also taught me how to play physical, so he always instilled that in our in our DB room to play physical and play with no fear…When they pulled us into the auditorium and told us the news, I couldn’t really wrap my mind around it because it was just a crazy situation to be honest. You wouldn’t expect him to pass so young.”
Senior free safety Zohnray Rochelle said Styles was like family.
“He was kind of like a big brother, took care of us, never really complained,” Rochelle said. “We didn’t know what was going on with him. He came in with a smile every day. That’s what hurt us the most is that we just never knew, but there’s nothing we could do about it. There’s nothing we could change about it. It was just more shocking when the news was given to us. I didn’t know really how to handle it when they told us he was gone. I just kind of let my emotions take over, and I had to end up going home…We only had a couple of months with him, but we all felt so close with him.”
Junior Trezon Richardson, who plays offensive and defensive line, said Styles always had a positive attitude.
“Coach Styles was one of those coaches that everybody loved, that everybody talked to on a daily basis,” he said. “If you walked up to him, he put a guaranteed smile on your face. He’s always smiling, always joking. You never knew if he was having a bad day because he always looked like he was having a good day. So he always brought good energy, gave us good lessons.”
This is the second Gainesville coach to pass away in less than six months. On April 7, assistant coach Rick Rone died from a heart attack at the age of 56.
“He was my O-line coach when I played O-line my freshman year,” Richardson said. “He gave me a lot of good tips, tricks. He taught me a lot of stuff and when he passed I took it hard because I was with him most of the time…Coach Rone passing was very hard.”
It has been a roller coaster of a season for the Hurricanes, who have also had to deal with senior kicker Sebastian Jimenez being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Aug. 22, along with losing Coach Peera for the last two games.
GHS (2-4, 1-1) is off this week and will travel to Lake Weir (Ocala) on Oct. 9 for a Class 4A-District 5 game.