Iowa HS football coach shot and killed in the weight room

This is the equivalent of someone going to Brownwood back in the day and capping Gordon Wood. Ed Thomas was as close to a football legend as there can be in Iowa — Hayden Fry notwithstanding.

I'm quite familiar with the Parkersburg story from the last year. This is absolutely stunning and sickening.

 

Slightly different version of how Becker slipped through the cracks from the Des Moines Register:

"At an afternoon press conference, investigators said Parkersburg police took suspect Mark Becker to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo after a high-speed chase sparked by an incident in which Becker broke into another man’s house.

"Investigators said police asked hospital officials to notify them before releasing Becker, but they said hospital officials failed to do so. They said Becker was released from the hospital Tuesday morning."

Coach Thomas was as great an athletic director as he was a man and a coach, but then the only athletic directors you really notice are the bad ones. He was at every single Aplington-Parkersburg athletic event, roaming around in his A-P jogging pants and warm-up jacket.

When it came to track season, he was also the turf Gestapo, imploring athletes and media to stay on the track side of the rope and scolding anyone who even thought about cutting across the football field to get to the backstretch. "Get off the grass!" Usually a look from him, though, was enough to keep everyone, whether they were 17 or 57, in line.

It's widely known that Thomas was one of those who lost a house in last year's F5, and it's also widely known how he and his football players were one of the biggest rallying points Parkersburg had as they were piecing things back together, but I learned then just how revered he really was in that community. Some residents who had also lost everything seemed just as in awe of Thomas as the mile-wide F5 itself, talking about him in hushed, reverent tones, pointing out where he was working, where he'd been, as if there were some cultural significance to him being there. But you know what? For that community, there was, and is, and probably will be for a long time.

 

Just talked to an area football coach who knew Thomas pretty well.

"How much more do those people in Parkersburg have to be tested?" he said.

 

I thought the same thing this morning. I tried for a moment to put myself in their place, but it's impossible.

 

JB, that is exactly what we've been saying out here in Des Moines today.

What more do Parkersburg have to go through?

Wayne Drehs of ESPN is up there tonight for the vigil. He spoke with Matt Perrault and Ken Miller on the drive time show this evening. Drehs feels that today's shooting will have a bigger effect on P'burg than the F5 last year. Drehs is afraid that this blow is something they may not recover from.

 

Thought about going up there today to cover everything, but we're short-handed this week. It's been sad enough talking to coaches on the phone for a local reaction story.

 

I'm no longer in the state, but I've heard from a local friend - a journalist in central Iowa - who is scared for Becker's parents. He talked to a couple people in Parkersburg who are scared for the Beckers, too. Those people fear the Beckers - who, judging by everything my friend heard today, are very kind and loving people - will have to leave the area because the best case scenario says things will never be the same for them and the worst case scenario says people will find them guilty by association and they'll have to endure all the treatment that comes with that.

Thoughts about that?

 

Terribly sad story. I've spent a pretty fair amount in NE Iowa and know how important a role coaches play in those small towns.
Coach Thomas seemed to have that gift as a football coach that understood that the game was more thn just x's and o's.

Unfortunately just as coaches are part of these small towns guns are too.

 

Boom_70,
Don't associate all guns with murder. The vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens who don't use their firearms to end the lives of other people. If the coach had been run over by a pickup, would you lament the number of them found in small town?

 

I should have elaborated. I don't associate all guns with murder. Agree that most gun owners are law abiding citizens. In fact the guy who killed Coach Thomas may have very well been a law abiding citizen until today. It seems like many of these type of incidents in rural areas are more mental health driven than crime driven. It happens far to often.

 

Gotcha, Boom_70. I was afraid you were one of those who see all firearms as evil personified, but view the person pulling the trigger as just misunderstood and a victim of circumstance.

 

Yes, let's remember someone CHOSE to use the gun for THIS PURPOSE.