Ed Thomas, the longtime coach who helped rebuild the Aplington-Parkersburg High School football program after the Iowa school was wiped out by a tornado last year, was shot and killed in a makeshift weight room near the school Wednesday.

The gunman, identified by the authorities as Mark Becker, 24, who once played for Thomas at the school, was arrested. Thomas was airlifted to Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, where he died, said a hospital spokeswoman, Andrea Barker. He was 58.

Parkersburg, which is about 80 miles north of Des Moines, was devastated by a tornado on May 25, 2008. It killed eight people and leveled scores of homes, including Thomas’s. But Thomas set out to rebuild the football field in time for the season, and when the team went 10-0 and reached the semifinals of the state playoffs, it provided a lift in morale for a town laid low.

“He embodied the essence of what a coach should be, and that legacy will endure,” Richard Wilkow, executive director of the Iowa High School Athletic Association, said in a statement. “He will be forever remembered not so much for his many wins on the field, but for the exemplary manner in which he coached kids and led the Aplington-Parkersburg community and school.”

Becker was being held at Butler County Jail, charged with first-degree murder. On Sunday, he was charged by the police after a late-night, high-speed chase through two counties.

Cedar Falls Police Chief Jeff Olson told the Associated Press Wednesday that the Butler County deputies who arrested Becker after the car chase agreed to take him to a hospital psychiatric ward and request that the Cedar Falls police be notified when he could be released. Olson said the Cedar Falls police did not hear anything more.

Becker spent Tuesday night at his parents’ house, according to Jeff Jacobson, a special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Kevin Winker, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said Becker did not threaten anyone else in the weight room and was arrested without incident at home a short time after the shooting.

The Des Moines Register reported that about 50 students were in the school, which was not in session, at the time of the shooting, around 8 a.m. Several football players were working out in the weight room at the time and witnessed it.

Becker played football at the school, where the stadium is named after Thomas, whose 37-year coaching record was 292-84. Thomas was named by the N.F.L. as high school coach of the year in 2005, and four of his former players play in the N.F.L.: Green Bay’s Aaron Kampman, Jacksonville’s Brad Meester, Detroit’s Jared DeVries and Denver’s Casey Wiegmann. That alone is remarkable for a small high school with an enrollment around 250.



source : http://www.nytimes.com