[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 197 (Friday, November 21, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H4893]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1120
                           HONORING JOHN BEAM

  (Ms. SIMON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. SIMON. Mr. Speaker, 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. Two 
claps. Ready, ready.

                          ____________________