{"id":85092,"date":"2025-12-07T15:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/85092\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T15:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T15:08:12","slug":"public-memorial-at-laney-college-to-honor-beloved-oakland-football-coach-john-beam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/85092\/","title":{"rendered":"Public memorial at Laney College to honor beloved Oakland football coach John Beam"},"content":{"rendered":"

A celebration and memorial for legendary Oakland football coach John Beam is scheduled for this week on the Laney College campus.<\/p>\n

The event, titled \u201cLight the Path, Light the Field: A Luminaria Walk Honoring the Legacy of Coach John Beam<\/a>,\u201d kicks off at 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Laney Bistro.<\/p>\n

Participants will gather there and then walk to the football field along a path Beam himself often trod since coming to the school in 2004 as an assistant coach and then since 2012 as head coach of the Laney Eagles football team.<\/p>\n

At the time of his death, Beam was working as the college\u2019s athletic director. A former Skyline High School football coach, Beam was a long-time mentor in the Oakland community and was made famous for his participation in the \u201cLast Chance U<\/a>\u201d documentary series on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a collective walk from the Laney College campus to the football stadium, we will reflect on the journey Coach Beam walked with generations of students \u2014 from learning and mentorship to teamwork and community building \u2014 illuminating the path to the field he loved,\u201d college spokesperson Mark Johnson said in an email.<\/p>\n

Luminaria walk to trace coach\u2019s legacy<\/p>\n

Before the walk, participants will hear a few short speeches from college and community leaders reflecting on Beam and his legacy, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the speeches, we will collect the luminaria and walk 0.3 miles to the football stadium to place the luminaria on the field and observe a short video program on the Laney scoreboard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Luminarias are traditional Southwestern paper lanterns, often made using small paper bags, sand and candles.<\/p>\n

\"\"A map shows the planned route of the \u201cLight the Path, Light the Field: A Luminaria Walk\u201d event in honor of Laney College coach John Beam. The event will be held at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, at Laney College in Oakland. (Peralta Community College District via Bay City News)<\/p>\n

The 66-year-old was shot shortly before noon on Nov. 13 at the Laney College fieldhouse and died at Highland Hospital the following morning.<\/p>\n

Police arrested Cedric Irving Jr., 27, in connection with Beam\u2019s death and, if convicted of murder with special circumstances, he could face up to 50 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n

Irving is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail and his next court date is a plea hearing scheduled for Dec. 16 in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.<\/p>\n

Irving played football at Skyline High School but did not play for Beam, according to police, who described the shooting as a \u201ctargeted incident\u201d but didn\u2019t provide a possible motive.<\/p>\n

Irving was not a student or employee at Laney but was known to loiter on or near the campus. A firearm found in Irving\u2019s possession was allegedly the same caliber as rounds found at the shooting scene, according to police.<\/p>\n

More information about the memorial event<\/a> can be found on the Peralta Community College District\u2019s website. Participants are encouraged to carpool or take public transit to the campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A celebration and memorial for legendary Oakland football coach John Beam is scheduled for this week on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[389,30942,1393,1321,48019,723,15,1043,93,4306,5364,2043,33091,33037,33227,24282,143,33892,145,144,10374,1492,44546,4290,35534],"class_list":["post-85092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alameda-county","tag-athletics","tag-coaches","tag-college-football","tag-community-mentor","tag-crime","tag-education","tag-event","tag-featured","tag-featured-news","tag-gun-violence","tag-high-school-football","tag-john-beam","tag-laney-college","tag-last-chance-u","tag-memorial","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-community","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-obituary","tag-public-safety","tag-remembrance","tag-tribute","tag-vigil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}