Arthur Ashe Courage Award For Ed Thomas Family

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LOS ANGELES (GaeaTimes.com)- The Arthur Ashe Courage Award for the year 2010 has a winner and it is the family of football coach Ed Thomas. During the ESPYs that was organized yesterday night at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, the wife and children of Ed Thomas, the football coach who had been killed a year ago, was rewarded with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award to salute the courage that they have shown in forgiving the murderer of their beloved family member.

Ed Thomas fell a victim to a gun fired at him in the month of June last year, as a result of which he lost his life and Mark Becker, the 24 year old boy who was responsible for making the attack found himself behind bars for life. Police later reported that Mark Becker was a mentally challenged patient. Receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, Jan Thomas, the wife of Ed Thomas said that it was their immense faith in the law of their country that helped them to come out of their grief and pain following the incident. Jan Thomas emphasized on the fact that it was necessary for the Thomas’ to show courage as everything ultimately rests in the hands of the law.

Also present with Jan Thomas at the ESPYs to collect the Arthur Ashe Courage Award were the couple’s two children Aaron and Todd. The Thomas family live in the Parkersburg area of Iowa. Mark Becker, the boy who fired the fatal shot at Ed Thomas, has been imprisoned for life. The Ed Thomas family joins the likes of Muhammad Ali and Nelson Mandela who have also received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award in the past.