{"id":303775,"date":"2025-11-23T16:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303775\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T16:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T16:03:07","slug":"i-used-to-call-him-on-fathers-day-oakland-shattered-by-football-coachs-killing-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303775\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I used to call him on Father\u2019s Day\u2019: Oakland shattered by football coach\u2019s killing | Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Football in Oakland, California<\/a>, is more than a sport. It\u2019s a community. In many schools, coaches are like parental figures who get young people through vulnerable times, into universities and sometimes even drafted to the National Football League.<\/p>\n

So when gun violence came for longtime Oakland<\/a> football coach John Beam, whose mentorship had changed the lives of generations of students, the devastation reverberated around the city.<\/p>\n

Beam, 66, was shot in the head at the Laney College athletics field house on 13 November, in what police officers called a \u201ctargeted incident\u201d. He died of his injuries in hospital the following day.<\/p>\n

A 27-year-old man, Cedric Irving Jr, made his first court appearance Tuesday after being charged with Beam\u2019s murder. Irving, who has no prior criminal record, is being held without bail and is scheduled to enter a plea on 16 December.<\/p>\n

He faces 50 years to life if convicted, along with enhancements alleging he personally fired the gun and that Beam was particularly vulnerable. Prosecutors have not disclosed a possible motive.<\/p>\n

Beam\u2019s death has rocked the northern California port city. On Wednesday afternoon outside Laney College\u2019s athletics complex, under a heavy grey sky, a makeshift shrine was filled with flickering candles, flowers, sneakers, a tripod, a football ball and outpouring of love scrawled on to hats and jerseys. Students and family friends came to pay their respects. The sports field, usually filled with players and games, was deserted, but for a flock of Canadian geese.<\/p>\n

Jack Nelson, a retired teacher, volunteer coach and 1972 alumnus of Skyline high school, where Beam had led the team to 15 Oakland Athletic League titles, said the killing felt like a major moment: \u201cThis is huge. It\u2019s like killing the governor. He\u2019s the governor of Oakland to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since his death, students had been chanting Beam\u2019s name, Nelson said. The other day, he was running past a middle school where students were playing football and after touchdown they all chanted \u201cJohn Beam! John Beam! John Beam!\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

John Beam, center, celebrates winning the Oakland Athletic League Silver Bowl in 2000. Photograph: John O\u2019Hara\/AP<\/p>\n

Gun violence remains a pervasive problem for Oakland, even though the city has seen homicides decline recently after pandemic highs. Skyline high school went into lockdown due to a shooting the day before Beam\u2019s fatal shooting \u2013 its third school shooting<\/a> in as many years. On 18 December, hundreds of Skyline students staged a walkout<\/a> to protest a lack of safety on campus and gun violence.<\/p>\n

Coaches in the city have long played a role in helping young people cope with the violence, and prevent it, said Frankie Navarro<\/a>, the commissioner of the Oakland Athletics League, Oakland unified school district. Beam, whom he worked closely with over the years, was no exception, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re truly life coaches, and regardless of the students\u2019 home situation, social economic status, they can become a resource for our youth to develop into kind human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly the role Beam played in the lives of so many Oakland students, said J\u2019Sharlon Jones, 47, now a website developer in Denver.<\/p>\n

Growing up in West Oakland to a single mother, he went to Skyline High specifically for its sports program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re playing sports you\u2019re protected, the drug dealers don\u2019t hassle you,\u201d said Jones, who used to get to school at 6.30am to lift weights and spent his afternoons training for track.<\/p>\n

Skyline High, under Coach Beam, took home the state championship which set Jones up to be recruited to Colorado State University on a full scholarship to play football.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to call Coach Beam on Father\u2019s Day. I never had a father in my house. When you don\u2019t have a dad you don\u2019t have someone giving you guidance. He\u2019s a person who cares. He gave a fuck,\u201d said Jones. \u201cYou felt like what it was like to have a team, to be committed, to be celebrated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHeartaches, shock, denial, and the whole gamut of emotions \u2013 the last thing on the bingo card was that happening to Coach,\u201d said Haran Jackson, another former student from Skyline who coach Beam helped get into college.<\/p>\n

Jackson will never forget the look on his mother\u2019s face when Beam explained to her that her son was being recruited to go to college on scholarships and that they were going to \u201ctake care of his room and board, education, the whole deal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jackson was a late bloomer when it came to joining the football team and had never expected to get recruited, he said. His first encounter with Beam was one of getting told off for kicking a ball back to some female student athletes in a manner that Beam found disrespectful. But rather than feeling embarrassed, Jackson went and apologized and felt inspired to work hard to prove himself to Beam. And it worked.<\/p>\n

Growing up in a single-parent home in Oakland, Jackson never imagined he\u2019d get to have a college experience, which changed his life trajectory, getting to see the country and the world. \u201cCoach quarterbacked that whole situation for me,\u201d said Jackson adding: \u201cHe really relished in finding the diamonds in the rough, like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beam even set him on his current career, working in theatre and film, with a tip about an audition for runners to do a Nike commercial. Jackson got the job.<\/p>\n

The day before the fatal shooting, Beam texted Jackson an introduction to another former student, Daniel Cotroneo, who also lives in LA and works in the film industry. \u201cI think the two of you should hook up. Let me know how it goes,\u201d Beam said.<\/p>\n

On day one of joining the Skyline high school football team, Cotroneo, now a cinematographer and film-maker, dislocated his finger catching the football.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Beam sort of chuckled at me and was like, \u201cWell, hey, football might not work out for you, but we\u2019re looking for a video guy,\u201d Cotroneo recalled.<\/p>\n

From that point forward, he became the football team\u2019s videographer, filming home games, road games and editing together highlight reels for players being recruited by colleges. The experience set Cotroneo on his trajectory to film school and on to working in the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was single-handedly responsible for submitting probably six or seven players for full scholarships in each of the years that I was working with the team. And probably most of these guys never had anybody in their family that went to college,\u201d said Cotroneo, adding \u201che was giving kids a purpose and an outlet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cotroneo runs through the numbers of people whose lives were touched by Beam: 30-40 players on a team per year, multiplied that by over 45 years. \u201cAnd then you factor in that a lot of these guys that end up on the football teams don\u2019t necessarily have a strong male role model in their lives,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Beam struck that balance of somebody who \u201cdemanded authority in every room he walked into, but he was also personable and funny, he challenged you\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Laney College athletics complex, where John Beam was shot dead. Photograph: Jessica Christian\/AP<\/p>\n

Cotoreno had discussed trying to collaborate on film projects with Beam. Likewise. Beam had read a script for a social horror film that Jackson wrote and wanted to be part of it, according to Jackson, hence the text intro.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen a network of other successful black men in Oakland like what I\u2019ve seen with athletes, Skyline and John Beam,\u201d said J\u2019Sharlon Jones.<\/p>\n

Beam was always \u201ccreating a network\u201d, said Navarro, the OAL commissioner: \u201cHe was that person that kind of bridged the connections\u201d \u2013 creating opportunities for people in his vast multi-generational network to help each other.<\/p>\n

Nelson is raising funds to organize an alumni basketball game in Beam\u2019s honor, and said there\u2019s a 25 foot long sign in the works for Skyline\u2019s sports field saying: \u201cJohn Beam\/Anthony Fardella Athletic Complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navarro and Beam collaborated this year on creating the first annual Oakland football classic<\/a> in October to kick off the league season. The classic will be named after Beam, Navarro said.<\/p>\n

Jones wants to build a website where all the stories about Coach can live for ever.<\/p>\n

Cotoreno is scouting a feature film in the Bay and is committed to bringing aboard local youth as his way of giving back and honouring Beam\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe in heaven, but when I get to heaven, I\u2019m going to be looking for John Beam with a flashlight, making sure I don\u2019t miss him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Football in Oakland, California, is more than a sport. It\u2019s a community. In many schools, coaches are like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-303775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}