Iowa HS football coach shot and killed in the weight room

[Gutter]

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090624/NEWS/90624008

One of Iowa’s most prominent high-school football coaches was shot and wounded this morning.

A player on the Aplington-Parkersburg football team said the victim was coach Ed Thomas.

School business manager Pat Gosch told the Cedar Rapids Gazette that Thomas was shot in the head at point-blank range.

Thomas has been the school’s coach for nearly three decades. He has nearly 300 career victories, and four of his former players have played in the NFL (including Aaron Kampman).

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Disgusting. Odds on being a ex-player with a grudge? Or even a current one?


UPDATED: Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that he is dead ... http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090624/NEWS/706249946/1001/NEWS

 

[D-3 Fan]

FB coach of town hit by devastating '08 tornado shot at school this AM

Many of you might remember the town of Parkersburg, Iowa, that was hit by a F-5 tornado last Memorial Day. The town prided on the successful football team, led by Ed Thomas, and produced 4 NFL players (DeVries, Kampmann, Meester, and Wiegmann).

I have some troubling news that has broke an hour ago. Coach Thomas was shot several times in the school's weight room around 8:30 am CDT this morning by an individual who is still unnamed. Suspect is in custody. Thomas was airlifted to hospital in nearby Waterloo.

This is a great shock throughout the state due to the tremendous success of the program and what Parkersburg is going through to rebuild after last May's tornado.

 

[Gutter]

Re: Iowa HS football coach killed in the weight room

As an aside, this was the same town ravaged by a tornado last year: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3454225

 

[D-3 Fan]

Buddy of mine in the biz confirmed to me on text Thomas has died.

 

[Small Town Guy]

On a Hawkeye message board someone said it was a 2004 grad.

 

[Mark2010]

No place is safe anymore. Not a home, not a church, not a school, not a weight room.

 

[RickStain]

No place is safe anymore. Not a home, not a church, not a school, not a weight room.

This has always been true. It's just that a few decades ago, nobody outside of Iowa would have heard about this.

 

[D-3 Fan]

Iowa was never immune to this, if that is the interpretation I'm getting out of this. We've had a shooting in a City Hall, and other places folks didn't think it would happen.

The shock of today was that out of all the places, out of all the people, it was at AP High and Ed was the victim.

The magnitude of it is enormous now on TV and radio.

Memorial gathering will be the football field this evening. Services are pending with the local funeral home.

 

[silvershadow1981]

That's horrible. May he rest in peace. This had to be some disgruntled kid who got cut.

 

[Gutter]

They've confirmed that it is a 24-year-old former player.

 

[JBHawkEye]

The guy who did it was supposed to have been taken to a hospital psychiatric ward after leading police on a high-speed chase a few days ago.

From AP:

Police say a 24-year-old man charged with murdering a prominent Iowa high school football coach was supposed to have been taken to a hospital psychiatric ward after leading police on a car chase.
Cedar Falls Police Chief Jeff Olson says he was told Butler County Sheriff’s deputies would take Mark Becker to the ward after taking a baseball bat to a Cedar Falls home and leading police on a chase Saturday night.
The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on whether deputies took Becker to the ward.
Olson says Becker was released from custody at some point but that his department wasn’t notified.
Becker is charged with first-degree murder in the Wednesday slaying of Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach Ed Thomas. Authorities say Becker, a former player, walked into the high school weight room and unloaded several shots into Thomas in front of some current players.
Becker was charged Monday with eluding police pursuit.

 

[KYSportsWriter]

This is awful. Saw the scroll on ESPN during the U.S.-Spain soccer game. I feel bad for those kids and that town.

 

[Football_Bat]

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.

 

[NX]

From AP:

Police say a 24-year-old man charged with murdering a prominent Iowa high school football coach was supposed to have been taken to a hospital psychiatric ward after leading police on a car chase.
Cedar Falls Police Chief Jeff Olson says he was told Butler County Sheriff’s deputies would take Mark Becker to the ward after taking a baseball bat to a Cedar Falls home and leading police on a chase Saturday night.
The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on whether deputies took Becker to the ward.
Olson says Becker was released from custody at some point but that his department wasn’t notified.
Becker is charged with first-degree murder in the Wednesday slaying of Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach Ed Thomas. Authorities say Becker, a former player, walked into the high school weight room and unloaded several shots into Thomas in front of some current players.
Becker was charged Monday with eluding police pursuit.

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.

 

[JBHawkEye]

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.

 

[NX]

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

 

[D-3 Fan]

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.

 

[JBHawkEye]

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.

 

[NX]

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?

 

[Boom_70]

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.