John Beam, the athletic director and former head football coach at Laney College in Oakland, Calif., who was featured on Netflix’s “Last Chance U” show in 2020, died Friday after being shot in the head on campus Thursday.
He was 66 years old.
Beam was described as being in critical condition following the shooting — with 27-year-old Cedric Irving Jr. being taken into custody Friday morning — before being pronounced dead Friday at 10 a.m., ABC7 News reported.
Assistant police chief James Beere described it as a “very targeted incident,” and while Beam and Irving weren’t close, the pair knew each other and Beam was “open to helping everybody in our community,” Beere added.
Irving played at Skyline High School, where Beam coached for 22 years (including 17 as head coach), but Irving did not play for Beam, according to Beere.
The shooting occurred around noon on the Laney campus Thursday, and the suspect was arrested around 3 a.m. on Friday morning, according to ABC7 News. Beere said Irving was known to “loiter” around Laney’s campus.
“The Peralta community is devastated by his shooting,” Laney chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson wrote in a message to employees, according to CNN. “We are stunned and heartbroken that such violence has touched our campus and one of the most respected and beloved members of our Laney, Peralta, and Oakland community.”
Beam joined Laney’s football coaching staff in 2004 and was promoted to head coach in 2012. Twenty of his former players have gone on to play in the NFL.
“My thoughts are with Coach John Beam and his loved ones,” Oakland mayor Barbara Lee wrote in an X post early Friday morning. “We are praying for him. Coach Beam is a giant in Oakland — a mentor, an educator, and a lifeline for thousands of young people. For over 40 years, he has shaped leaders on and off the field, and our community is shaken alongside his family.
“This is the second shooting on an Oakland campus in two days, and it is devastating. Schools should be the safest spaces in our city. We need guns off our streets now. We are standing together, praying for Coach Beam and his loved ones.”
