Bears CB Leaves Fans Moved After Revealing the ‘Father Figure’ Who Fueled His Game-Saving Interception. DH

Nahshon Wright paid tribute to John Beam, his former coach and ‘Last Chance U’ star, who died Friday after being shot.

There were surely football lessons that Bears corner Nahshon Wright took with him from former Laney College football coach John Beam, as he went up to pick off his former teammate, Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy, at the end of the first half Sunday.

Then, there was the part that was a little tougher to explain.

How his outstretched arms seemed to just barely reach the ball. How the ball seemed to stick to his hands like magnets meeting eight feet in the air. How that was all happening on this particular Sunday, in his fifth NFL season.

“Beam would tell me every game that he got to watch, I got a pick,” an emotional Wright told me over the phone after the game. “So yeah, I definitely had him with me today on the way up to go make that play. It just meant a lot to come down with it because I know he was watching over me.”

Wright and his hometown of Oakland lost a legend Friday. Beam, who achieved fame late in life on Netflix’s Last Chance U, was shot just before noon Thursday and died on Friday morning at the age of 66. Police have made an arrest and said that the alleged killer targeted Beam.

Beam gained national notoriety in 2020 when Laney was spotlighted on Last Chance U. But to those who knew him, all the show did was reveal what they already knew about a man who made a massive impact on Bay Area kids such as Wright—and routinely would make his presence felt at a point when they needed him the most.

That certainly was the case with Wright, who lost his dad just as Beam started recruiting him as a high school senior in 2017.

“Our relationship really started after my dad passed,” Wright said. “I was in bed for about a week or so, just crying. I was down—super down. And he came to my house, knocked on the door and got me and my little brother out of the bed. We had about a two-hour talk, right outside the door. And he just asked us, like, What would my dad want for us? And from that point on, it was history.”

Beam’s impact on Wright

Wright played for Laney in the fall of 2018, when Beam helped him get on the radar of Pac-12 schools. He transferred to Oregon State in ’19, started for two years there and then, on Beam’s counsel, declared for the ’21 NFL draft.

“He knew a lot of NFL scouts, so he was giving me feedback during that time, and he got me in contact with a bunch of agents. He was …” Wright said, pausing, “He was a father figure in my life.”

Their relationship was unique at a time when Wright needed Beem most. However, Beam made that kind of difference in many kids’ lives. “Hundreds of people,” Wright said.

His impact, Wright pointed out, was wide-ranging, so much so that Bay Area athletes past (Maxx Crosby) and present (Steph Curry) went out of their way to honor him.

But few could have imagined of doing the way Wright did on Sunday.

That story actually started on Wednesday, when no one had any inkling that tragedy was coming. That night, Beam checked in with Wright, just like he would with him just about weekly.

“He called me at like 7:30,” Wright said. “We probably spoke for about 10 or 20 minutes. We definitely had some laughs and then we just, again, we just talked about life and a little bit of football and just my situation that I’m in now. And just … I’m super grateful that I got to speak to him one last time and got to tell him I love him before we got off the phone. So yeah, the night before … I actually got to speak to him.”

Less than 48 hours later, he was gone. And for the 48 hours after that, Wright fielded a bunch of texts with the same basic message—“Just telling me to go get one for Beam.”

The twist here is that Wright’s play came about in a manner that any football coach—an old-timer like Beam included—would have loved: through preparation.

In this season’s first Bears-Vikings matchup, on a Monday Night Football stage in Week 1, Wright registered a game-shifting pick-six. He undercut Justin Jefferson, who was running an out-breaking route, snatched McCarthy’s throw, and took it the distance.

“I just knew coming into this game that they weren’t going to give me that look. And so I got it actually a few times this game, the out-and-up, and I just knew not to ride the out. I knew the double moves were going to come off of it because I was so aggressive in the first matchup,” Wright said.

So in this one, Wright kept his eyes inside as Jordan Addison hit him with another out-and-up, got position on him, and followed McCarthy’s eyes from snap to throw. Then, he reached up and, again, the inexplicable happened.

He laid out for the ball, made the play in the end zone and came up in tears.

“As soon as I came down with it, just that wave of emotions, it just hit me,” Wright said. “And I just got down and just said a quick prayer. And just thanked God, because, I mean, only God could have made that possible.”

Wright’s dedication to Beam’s family

I was planning on asking Wright what he intended to do with the ball.

But he got to that before I could.

“That ball is going to be dedicated to him,” Wright said. “I’m gonna go back home and give it to his wife and daughters and granddaughter. Because I know, it’ll mean a lot to them.”

Of course, that moment won’t solve everything.

But it certainly felt like part of something bigger as Wright got back to the locker room, after the Bears finished a very big win over the Vikings.

“I know today he would have texted me when I got my pick. And I would’ve come into the locker room and seen a message from him of some sort,” Wright said. “Or he would have told me to call him. I mean, man, Beam always kept tabs on me, my little brother [Saints CB Rejzohn Wright]. Even my cousin [Colts S] Mekhi [Blackmon], who didn’t even play for him, he kept tabs on him. 

“To have him gone now, it’s like reliving my dad’s passing. But yeah, Beam was an incredible human being. And I think it just hurt a little more the way we lost him.”

At the same time, Wright knows just the way to honor him—and it’s not necessarily through big plays like the one he made in Beam’s honor against the Vikings.

As Wright sees it, the best way will be how he lives his life every day from here on out.

That, he thinks, is the best reflection of how Beam’s legacy will live on.

“For sure—and it’ll continue to [be], just because of what he instilled in me,” Wright said. “He left me with a lot of game, and I’m gonna definitely carry that on through life. And even when I’m done playing football, just being able to get back to the community and just try to walk in his shadow. Oakland needs it. The Bay Area needs it.

“So if I can be that person, I definitely will be.”

Just as Beam himself was.