{"id":32192,"date":"2025-05-07T23:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T23:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/32192\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T23:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T23:02:10","slug":"austin-peay-football-player-killed-by-alleged-drunk-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/32192\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay football player killed by alleged drunk driver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) &#8211; An Austin Peay State University football player was killed by an alleged drunk driver Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WSMV4 spoke with the player\u2019s family Wednesday afternoon. \u201cI am devastated,\u201d his mom, Dionne Bryant, said. \u201cIt is hard for me to wrap my head about it.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">William Hardrick\u2019s parents are heartbroken after they said he was killed by a drunk driver on I-65 right outside of Huntsville, Alabama on Tuesday night. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAll we know is he was heading home and an 18-wheeler, the guy was intoxicated,\u201d Bryant said. \u201cHe ran through eight cars and kept going.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The string of crashes shut down the interstate for nearly 30 miles, and the driver has now been charged with Hardrick\u2019s murder. His family said they were told their son was wearing a seatbelt, but his car flipped several times. <\/p>\n<p><a class=\"link | text-reset d-block h-100 w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsmv.com\/page\/our-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"WSMV 4 - Watch Anywhere, Anytime. Fire TV - Apply TV - Roku - Android TV - Site Livestream\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RIY4BQUFQBDQNMUHKDJ3VHGHGM.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsmv.com\/page\/our-apps\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wsmv.com\/page\/our-apps\/\">Here are instructions on how to watch WSMV4 live on various platforms.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The 22-year-old APSU senior football player was back home to get his REAL ID before Wednesday\u2019s deadline. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cJust why,\u201d his dad, Ervin Stone, asked. \u201cWhy William? William was the kid who did everything right, stayed out of trouble, stayed in school and went through all of those obstacles.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hardrick was a transfer from Miami University in Ohio after first attending Mississippi State. His first football season at Austin Peay would have been for the 2025 season. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThere, he finally found his spot,\u201d Stone said. \u201cHe finally felt that someone really wanted him and to represent him.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Head football coach Jeff Faris said in a statement, \u201cWilliam Hardrick was an exceptional young man, and our team is heartbroken by his loss.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hardrick\u2019s parents said he was looking forward to graduating college and had dreams of making it to the NFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WSMV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) &#8211; An Austin Peay State University football player was killed by an alleged drunk driver&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,820,4230,88,526,12821],"class_list":{"0":"post-32192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-local","10":"tag-nashville","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tennessee","13":"tag-wsmv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114469047194681533","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}