John Beam obit

 

‘Last Chance U’ Coach John Beam Dies After Being Shot On Laney College Campus

He was not on the list.

John Beam, the Laney College athletic director featured on Netflix‘s Last Chance U, has died after being shot on campus, Oakland Police Chief Floyd Mitchell announced Friday.

The announcement of Beam’s death Friday comes one day following the shooting. A suspect has been arrested.

“This was a very targeted incident,” Assistant Chief James Beere said during a news conference Friday. Beere added that the suspect and Beam knew each other and while they weren’t close, the coach was “open to helping everybody in our community.”

Beere revealed that the suspect played football at Skyline High School in Oakland, where Beam had previously worked during the 1980s and ’90s, but he was not employed at Skyline when the suspect was a student. Beere added that the suspect was taken into custody without an altercation and a gun had been recovered.

Charges were still pending, police said.

Featured with his team on the fifth and final season of Last Chance U in 2020, Beam had served as Laney College’s director of athletics since 2006, and head football coach since 2012.

The Netflix docuseries focused on athletes at junior colleges striving to turn their lives around. In the Laney Eagles’ season on the show, under Beam’s leadership, the team was out to defend its 2018 national championship. The Laney players had to overcome injuries, road blocks, and the pressure to prove themselves once again. The season showed how the culture and community had shaped the program, team and their outlook on the game of football.

Last Chance U, which aired from 2016-2020 was produced by Netflix in association with Condé Nast Entertainment, Endgame Entertainment and One Potato Productions.