{"id":90146,"date":"2025-12-11T05:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/90146\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T05:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:14:09","slug":"public-memorial-held-for-legendary-football-coach-john-beam-in-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/90146\/","title":{"rendered":"Public memorial held for legendary football coach John Beam in Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"

A public memorial for legendary football coach John Beam took place in Oakland on Wednesday, an emotional day for this community.<\/p>\n

Coach Beam’s family and students gathered for a “light the path, light the field” walk honoring his legacy. They walked the same route he used to take every day from Laney College Bistro to the Eagles Football Stadium.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

He was shot and killed last month<\/a> at Laney College in Oakland.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Legendary Oakland coach John Beam dies after Laney College shooting; suspect arrested, police say<\/a><\/p>\n

“He believed in our young people, even before they believed in themselves,” said Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.<\/p>\n

“He loved Laney, he loved his students. He loved Oakland. He loved his job. He loved making a difference. He loved advocating for students. And he loved us. My kids. All of us,” said Tania Mitchell with Laney College.<\/p>\n

Laney College placed 2,000 paper lanterns to light the way, to represent what he did for so many.<\/p>\n

Many say Beam was more than a coach to many, he was a mentor, and a father figure.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

John Beam: Athletes, coaches, sports teams from Bay Area and beyond remember legendary coach<\/a><\/p>\n

A Celebration of Life will be held on January 10, 2026.<\/p>\n

The man accused of killing Beam is due back in court next week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public memorial for legendary football coach John Beam took place in Oakland on Wednesday, an emotional day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[34153,33091,33037,50017,33316,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-90146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-coach-beam","tag-john-beam","tag-laney-college","tag-legendary-coach","tag-legendary-football-coach","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90146","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=90146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}