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5 years of this week since this legendary football coaches passing.

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Coach Ed Thomas' legacy lives on

PARKERSBURG, Ia. – The Rev. Brad Zinnecker was hiking on a New Hampshire mountain when a cellphone rang, bringing horrible news.

The echoes of that day, June 24, 2009, caught him off guard. Zinnecker, the pastor at First Congregational Church in Parkersburg, a town of about 2,000 residents, would soon deliver a parting sermon to one of the elders who had hired him.

Zinnecker descended the mountain's rocky path. For an athlete who participates in extreme running events, it was a race like no other.

"You try to get down as quick as you can," Zinnecker said. "You've got the heart rate and all the emotions."
Five years ago this week, a former player struggling with mental illness walked into a crowded school weight room and gunned down Aplington-Parkersburg football coach Ed Thomas.

Words come more easily and tears fall less frequently now. The Thomas family still lives in the area, and Ed's sons, Aaron and Todd, maintain connections to the school. The gunman, Mark Becker, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, is serving a sentence for first-degree murder at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville while addressing his mental illness. Families of both the murderer and victim have developed advocacy roles out of the tragedy.

At the time of the murder, Ed Thomas' death sent ripples across the country. ESPN carried the news. Thousands of miles away on an Alaskan cruise ship, Alex Pollock's phone suddenly buzzed with more than two dozen text messages. Pollock, a former football player under Thomas, was supposed to be enjoying a family vacation.

"There were 26 text messages for me and 10 voicemails, and all of them had something to do with 'Sorry to hear about your coach,' " Pollock said. "I looked over at my younger brother, Grant, and said, 'Coach Thomas just got shot.' "

Thomas, who won two state championships and rallied his community after a devastating EF5 tornado the previous year, was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery on the southwest side of town.

Today, he leaves an ever-broadening legacy.

On the football field named after him, Pollock is now the coach, teaching his athletes the Ed Thomas way to play the game. The Thomas family contributed to a book published about him. A movie is being developed by Iowan Tony Wilson, who also turned the story of Norway High School's last baseball team into the film "The Final Season."

The Ed Thomas Family Foundation — an organization that had its beginnings in a casual conversation at Thomas' visitation — preaches faith and football to high school coaches.

A law in the Iowa Code, passed as a result of Thomas' murder, aims to alert authorities to potentially violent criminals who are released from mental health care. In the days before the murder, Becker had been apprehended for vandalism and eluding authorities, then treated at a Waterloo hospital for psychiatric problems. He was released by the hospital, without notification of Parkersburg police.

Schools across the state used the tragedy as a catalyst to introduce better security.

All of the high school students who were present at the shooting scene have graduated and moved on to college or careers. The four NFL players coached by Thomas, who were active players at the time of his death, are retired now.

The families of both the victim and perpetrator have been transformed.

Becker's parents have become mental health advocates. Becker, who is serving a life sentence, declined to be interviewed by the Register.

*****There are many photos in the article.*****
 
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