A college football star who had been trying to rebuild his career in Vicksburg was charged with manslaughter and failure to stop and render aid in Fort Worth, Texas, Monday after allegedly driving drunk, hitting a van whose driver died and fleeing the scene, Lt. Paul Henderson of the Fort Worth Police Department said.

Texas authorities said they had charged Mark Pierce, 26, 205 West Drive, with the crimes.

He was in good condition this morning at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Henderson said.

According to a police statement, Pierce was headed west on a street in south Fort Worth at about 6:25 p.m. when the Chevrolet Trailblazer he was driving crossed into the eastbound lane and collided head-on with a minivan. The Trailblazer had earlier been reported stolen from the home of Pierce’s mother, but police said Pierce was likely driving the vehicle back to her residence.

The driver and sole occupant of the minivan, Lance Shetler, 42, 137 Bonniebrae Court, Burleson, Texas, died at the scene, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner. After leaving the scene on foot, Pierce was tracked down by police in Burleson, a Fort Worth suburb, the police statement said.

The statement said police suspected Pierce to be intoxicated and took him to John Peter Smith Hospital for blood alcohol tests. 

Pierce is charged with a form of manslaughter known in Texas as “intoxication manslaughter,” a second-degree felony which covers offenders who have allegedly caused the death of another person by driving drunk.  If convicted, he faces a jail sentence of at least two and up to 20 years, as well as a potential fine of up to $10,000.

The other charge he faces, failure to stop and render aid, carries a possible sentence of one year in a county jail to five years in a Texas state penitentiary, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

A fullback during his high-school career in Weatherford, Texas, and his college career at the University of Arkansas, Pierce scored two touchdowns for the Razorbacks’ in a seven-overtime win over Ole Miss in 2001. 

But Pierce’s on-the-field heroics were shadowed by family tragedy. His father died of a heart attack during his son’s sophomore season — as well as reports that he was a heavy drinker who didn’t change his ways even after claiming to have reformed.

“Everyone believed Pierce had turned the corner, but within days he told some teammates his newfound spiritual life didn’t mean he was going to quit drinking,” columnist Wally Hall of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wrote in December 2003.  “That drinking was just part of his life, he said, and had been for a while.”

Things came to a head after Arkansas’ 2003 season, during which Pierce, a junior, missed a game due to a run-in with the Fayetteville, Ark., police.  He left the team and entered the NFL draft.  But none of the franchises gave him a shot.

Pierce moved to Vicksburg a few years later, having ostensibly settled down with his wife, Mandy, whose relatives live near the city. He got a job at International Paper and had the goal of eventually playing professional football. He was working out at a local gym in between shifts insulating pipes for IP. 

The Facebook pages of Pierce and his wife indicate that the couple recently had a son.  He spent the 2006-07 school year as a volunteer football and basketball coach at Porters Chapel Academy, according to Randy Wright, PCA’s head football coach.

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Contact Ben Bryant at bbryant@vicksburgpost.com