Oakland Laney College Coach John Beam Dies After Campus Shooting

John Beam, the Laney College athletic director and legendary football coach with decades of experience in Oakland, died Friday morning after being shot on campus, police said.

Cedric Irving, 27, was arrested at a BART station early Friday on suspicion of carrying out the shooting, police said in a noon news conference. A weapon has been recovered, and police plan to present the case to the Alameda County district attorney’s office on Friday.

According to police, Beam and Irving knew each other but did not have a close relationship. Irving played high school football in Oakland, but not for Beam or Laney College, said interim Police Chief James Beere, who was named OPD’s temporary leader Friday afternoon.

Authorities did not disclose a motive for the shooting because Irving has not been charged yet, but they said it was a targeted incident.

During the press conference, Piedmont Police Chief Frederick Shavies called Beam, 66, an “incredible human being” and mentor.

“I lost my father when I was in high school, and Coach has — since I was 15, 16, 17 years old — always been there for me, has always reached out to me,” he said. “And it’s not just me … [it’s also] hundreds of individuals that were there last night” at a hospital vigil.

In 2018, Beam guided the Laney Eagles to a state championship and a No. 1 ranking in the country. He gained national attention in season 5 of the Netflix docuseries Last Chance U, released in 2020, which followed junior college football teams across the country for each season.

Last year, Beam stepped down as football coach but remained at Laney College as athletic director. Before arriving at Laney in 2004, he coached at Skyline High School in the Oakland Hills for 17 years.

“Coach Beam’s legacy isn’t measured in championships or statistics,” Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said in a statement Friday. “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.”

Beam was shot in the Laney Field House on Thursday afternoon, leaving the campus on lockdown as police secured the scene and investigated. As news of the shooting spread, many of his former players gathered at Highland Hospital in Oakland, where he was admitted.

“Like many of you, I struggle to comprehend the tragic loss of someone with so much bravado, enthusiasm, and tenacity for life,” Chancellor Tammeil Gilkerson of the Peralta Community College District wrote in a message to the district community Friday afternoon. “John’s vibrancy could be felt in every space he entered, proudly wearing his passion for students, Laney College, and Oakland.”

Across his 45-year career at Skyline High and Laney College, Beam coached over 2,500 players, including more than 200 who reached NCAA Division I programs and more than 30 who went on to appear in the NFL, Gilkerson said.

Still, he was known just as much for developing players into successful young men off the field and in the classroom, providing mentorship and an “unwavering love for the City of Oakland,” Gilkerson said.

“There are no real words to express my profound sorrow, but it is only softened by the tremendous gratitude I feel for the opportunity I had to work alongside him,” she said. “John made me laugh, infuriated me on some days, elevated my thinking, and constantly challenged me to be better for Peralta and for Oakland.”

Laney College’s campus was quiet the morning after the shooting, with security guards standing outside classrooms and in courtyards.

While classes are back in session, the parking lot to the athletics building where Beam was shot was cordoned off with police tape. A single vase of flowers and a candle marked the entrance.

This week, Oakland faced two shootings on school property, placing the campuses on temporary lockdown. On Wednesday, a young person was shot at Skyline High School, and two minors were taken into custody. Lee said during a Friday news conference that it has “been an incredibly difficult week for the city” and called it “the gun violence crisis playing out in real time.”

“Our work continues to get guns off of the streets of Oakland,” she said.

Gilkerson said that there will be drop-in employee and student counseling services available across the community college district.

“These acts of violence are incredibly painful and are individually experienced in many different ways,” Gilkerson wrote. “The notification may also bring up feelings from other incidents that I know, sadly, many of you have experienced.”

In an interview with KQED in 2020, Beam spoke about his aspirations for his players.

“I put the jerseys [of Laney alumni in the NFL] up there to inspire folks,” he said. “But then on Thursdays, I bring in other folks that come in that have played for me that are now doctors, or write books, or are police officers, or firemen. And so I want to let everybody know that these are all possibilities.”

KQED’s Jared Servantez, Eliza Peppel and Ayah Ali-Ahmad contributed to this report.

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