Two Laney College head football coaches — one retired, one current — will be honored in separate Hall of Fame celebrations in the coming months.
Current Laney Athletic Director and Head football coach John Beam will be inducted into the Bay Area Multi-Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday, Feb. 6.
Former head football coach Jay Uchiumi will be inducted into the California Coaches Hall of Fame in March.
The 15th Annual Multi-Ethnic HOF Induction Ceremony will be held on Friday, Feb. 6, at The Waterfront Hotel on Jack London Square in Oakland. The event is sold out.
Beam, a long-time football coach at Skyline High School, has coached at Laney since 2004, and has been the AD and head coach at Laney since 2012. He has a 19–14–0 wonloss record (57.6 percent) and has taken the Eagles to a postseason game every year.
While at Skyline, he had an 86–4–2 record in the Oakland Athletic League and coached the Titans to 15 OAL championships.
With Laney, Beam started as the Offensive Coordinator before becoming head coach. He has increased player recruitment to D-I schools and the Eagles had three players in the NFL this past season, including Pro Bowler CJ Anderson.
Beam has a long involvement with NFL, and had a long interview published on the NFL Player Engagement website last year.
Others to be inducted are former San Francisco 49er defensive tackle Tommy Hart, San Jose SaberCats coach Darren Arbet, track star Warren Edmondson, former Oakland A’s third baseman Carney Lansford, Oakland Raiders Hall of Fame center Jim Otto, and former San Francisco Giants shortstop Chris Speier.
Uchiumi spent 33 years teaching and coaching at Laney, and became head coach in 2006 after Stan Peters retired. “Uch” was the first Japanese-American football coach in California.
He complied a 42–22–0 (65.6 percent) record in his six years as head coach, taking Laney to a postseason game in four of those years.
The Coaches Hall of Fame luncheon will be in Visalia on March 14.