Lateefah Simon: “I rise today to honor Coach John Beam and to give condolences to the Beam family. Beam left an imprint on Oakland…”

“I rise today to honor Coach John Beam and to give condolences to the Beam family. Beam left an imprint on Oakland, California, that will never fade. For more than 40 years he built champions at Frick, at Skyline, and at Laney College, where he led the Eagles to titles and became one of the most respected coaches in junior college football in this Nation. But the greatest victories were not measured on scoreboards. His victories were measured in the thousands and thousands of young people who walked into their futures because he insisted that they could. He took young men with dreams they barely knew to name and pushed them to become scholars, to become leaders, to become fathers, to become champions. Coach Beam never chased the spotlight. In fact, he chased the transformation of young people who needed one adult who would never walk away. His death is a deep wound, a profound wound for the city of Oakland, and we honor him by carrying forward his unwavering commitment to the futures that he spent decades building and molding with his own hands. Coach Beam, we love you. You were a giant in our city, and your name will move through generations and generations and generations.”