A beloved former college football coach featured in the Netflix series “Last Chance U” died Friday, a day after he was shot on the Laney College campus where he was serving as athletic director
John Beam, 66, was shot late Thursday morning at the Laney College Fieldhouse, KNTV reported. He died at about 10 a.m. on Friday.
“We are devastated that John Beam, our loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, coach, mentor, and friend, has passed,” Beam’s family said in a statement. “Our hearts are full from the outpouring of love and support from all who cared about him. We are deeply grateful for your continued prayers, well wishes and thoughts. At this time, we kindly ask everyone to fully respect our family’s privacy.”
Oakland Police Assistant Chief James Beere said at a news conference on Friday that 27-year-old Cedric Irving Jr. had been arrested for the shooting, The Patch reported. Beere said detectives tracked Irving on surveillance footage from the college and nearby residences, businesses and bus routes before a sheriff’s deputy spotted him at the San Leandro BART station, leading to his arrest.
Police said Irving was known to “loiter” on the campus and played football at Skyline High School — where Beam coached before moving on to Laney College — but not while Beam was there.
Irving was not a student at Laney, Beere said, but was on campus for a specific reason, although he did not disclose what that reason was.
“This was a very targeted incident, and I will say that Coach Beam, although they did not have a close relationship, was open to helping everybody in our community,” Beere said, according to KNTV.
Beam began coaching at Laney, a junior college, as a running back coach in 2004 and became head coach in 2012. According to his bio on the school website, 20 0f his players have gone on to the NFL.
It was his work there that led to the Laney College Eagles’ featured role in the 2020 season of “Last Chance U,” a series that focused on athletes at junior colleges as they worked to turn their lives around, The Associated Press said. The series focused on Beam’s tendency to gamble on players nobody wanted, then working with those players to build teams that regular competed for league championships.
“Coach Beam’s legacy isn’t measured in championships or statistics,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said in a statement. “It’s measured in the thousands of young people he believed in, mentored, and refused to abandon, including my nephew, while at Skyline High School. He gave Oakland’s youth their best chance, and he never stopped fighting for them.”
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[Featured image: John Beam/Laney College]
