An Iowa high school football coach who helped get current pro players Casey Wiegmann, Jared DeVries, Brad Meester and Aaron Kampman to the NFL was shot and killed in the weight room of the school on Wednesday morning by a former player.
Ed Thomas, who has produced four NFL linemen as the football coach at tiny Aplington-Parkersburg High, was shot and killed Wednesday inside the school’s weight room, authorities said.
The gunman, identified by authorities as 24-year-old Mark Becker, shot Thomas multiple times just before 8 a.m. local time, authorities said. About 50 students were in the school, including several in the weight room, at the time. School was not in session, and no one else was injured in the attack.
Thomas, the 2005 NFL High School Football Coach of the Year, was airlifted to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, where he died, his family said in a statement. He was 58.
Becker, a former student and football player at the school, was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with first-degree murder, authorities said. He is being held in Butler County jail.
“No kids were hurt, we’re thankful for that,” superintendent Jon Thompson told KOEL radio. “They did witness this and so we have counselors at the site to talk with the kids.”
Thomas made national headlines last year when he insisted that the high school’s football field, named in his honor, be rebuilt as a way to help restore community pride in Parkersburg after it was hit by a powerful tornado in May 2008 that killed six people and destroyed the high school.
“A lot of people know coach Thomas for his success as a football coach, but a lot of people here locally know him as a person, as a dad and grandfather, and that’s where our thoughts are right now, with Coach Thomas,” Thompson said.
It’s sad that a man who obviously had such an impact on so many lives was lost this way. Thankfully no students were harmed, but a man lost his life for absolutely no reason.
My heart goes out to Thomas’ family.
