Iowa high school football coach, former NFL high school coach of year, shot in weight room

Prominent Iowa football coach shot in weight room

DES MOINES, Iowa — A gunman opened fire Wednesday morning on a prominent high school football coach in the central Iowa school’s weight room and was taken into custody shortly afterward, authorities said.

Aplington-Parkersburg High School coach Ed Thomas, who coached four NFL players, was shot at about 8 a.m. and airlifted to a hospital, said school district board secretary Sue Miller. His condition was not immediately known.

Holly Fokkena, a Butler County spokeswoman, said an adult male suspect has been taken into custody and was at the Butler County jail.

She said about 50 students were in the school when the shooting occurred.

Jessica Lown of the Iowa Department of Public Safety said the school has been secured and no else was injured. She declined to say whether the suspect is a student at the school.

Muller said she’s been told the shooter is not a student.

The district’s superintendent and a guidance counselor were meeting with students who were in the weight room at the time of the shooting.

Thomas, who is also Aplington-Parkersburg High School’s athletic director, runs a program during the summer for students, not just members of the team, Muller said.

The school is in Parkersburg, about 80 miles northeast of Des Moines.

Thomas is one of the most well-known high school football coaches in Iowa. He was honored as the NFL High School Coach of the Year in 2005, and four of his former players are in the NFL: Green Bay’s Aaron Kampman, Jacksonville’s Brad Meester, Detroit’s Jared DeVries and Denver’s Casey Wiegmann.

Thomas made national headlines last year when he insisted that the high school’s football field, named in his honor, be rebuilt as a way to help restore community pride

Thomas has a career record of 292-84 in 37 seasons as a head coach, 34 of them at Aplington-Parkersburg.