The Cashion community has been struck with yet another tragic loss over the July 4 holiday weekend.

Brexten Green, 20, died Saturday in a cliff diving accident at Grand Lake in the northeastern part of the state.

While no official report has been released, family members have confirmed Green didn’t resurface after diving off a cliff.

After authorities were notified, it was nearly an hour before his body was discovered.

Services for Green are 4 p.m. Friday, July 8, at the Cashion Public School gym.

A 2021 Cashion High School graduate, Green was a leader on Cashion’s historic 2020 Class A football state championship team.

The Wildcats became the first Oklahoma team to ever go 16-0 en route to winning the title.

Perhaps the most versatile player on the team, Green picked up an Oklahoma Coaches Association All-State selection and was named the District A-3 Most Valuable Player among his lengthy list of honors.

Those came after a season in which he had 94 catches for 1,638 yards and 18 touchdowns. He added 409 yards and six touchdowns rushing the ball.

Green also was sixth on the team with 58 tackles and was the Wildcats’ punter.

As a junior, Green also played a key role in Cashion’s run to the 2019 state title game, where the Wildcats were defeated by Ringling.

“He was really good then,” said Cashion football coach Lynn Shackelford.

“But he made the decision that from that point on, he wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned to be better than he was. His work ethic, in the weight room, at practice. It didn’t matter. He wanted to be great.”

Since that loss, Cashion has gone 30-1 on the football field and won a pair of state titles.

“He kind of changed our culture single-handedly,” Shackelford said. “We were good for a whole bunch of reasons, but when the best player is the hardest worker on the team, it’s harder for the younger kids to make the argument that they don’t need to be doing the same.”

Now, Shackelford said, the precedent Green helped set is the standard.

“I don’t even know how he’d get in the weight room some of the days, but he’d be up there any chance he got,” Shackelford said. “Now, in the last three years, you can’t walk our weight room and not see someone in there. It’s a testament to him and his leadership.”

Green also played a pivotal role in getting the Cashion baseball team to the Class 2A state tournament in 2021.

He signed to play football at Emporia State University in Kansas.

He was set to begin his second year with the program after red-shirting in 2021.

“It’s a terrible day for Emporia State football and just a devastating loss for the Green family,” said Emporia State football coach Garin Higgins. “Brexten was a great teammate who cared so much about this football program. It showed in his competitive spirit, his work ethic and his willingness to be there for his teammates. He will always be a part of our Hornet football family.”

Shackelford said Green’s athletic accomplishments were dwarfed only by his qualities as a young man.

“That’s the tremendous thing about Brexten,” Shackelford said. “He was an unbelievable athlete. He worked his tail off to go from being really good to being arguably the best in a really good class.

“But none of that encapsulates who he was as a person.”

Shackelford said he’s tried to read through the dozens and dozens of Facebook posts paying tribute to Green in the last few days.

“They all start with something about him being a really good football player or baseball player,” Shackelford said.

“But then so many of them go into a story of what he did for other people. Whether it was taking time to take a picture with their kids after a game, or taking some freshman home from weightlifting everyday or something he did for another younger kid at a dodgeball game.

“As good as he was on the field, he was way better off of it.”

Two years ago, the Cashion community was dealt a pair of unexpected losses.

Dillon Mitchell, a 2013 Cashion graduate who also played for Shackelford, died suddenly at age 25.

On July 2, 2020, Jacie Cochran, the wife of Cashion graduate and current assistant football coach Cale Cochran, died after giving birth to their son, Jaxon.

“It’s tough,” Shackelford said. “The most important thing is being there for the family. But one of the great things about Cashion is, you know that’s going to happen. We’ll find a way to get through it.”

Still, he said, the loss felt by the Cashion athletic program, the school, the community and the Green family, is especially hard to accept.

“We lost a tremendous individual who had accomplished so much, but was still really just starting in life,” Shackelford said.

“Who knows what he could have ended up being.”