Ex-football coach of New Orleans terror victim Tiger Bech shares heartbreaking tribute after murder at age 27

Tiger Bech, a former college football player and one of 14 people killed in Wednesday’s terrorist attack in New Orleans, was more than just a star, according to his former coach.

“That man was unbelievable,” said Marty Cannon, the principal of St. Thomas More Catholic High School in Lafayette, Louisiana and Bech’s former coach told TMZ. ‘Tiger was not just a football player. He had a lot of depth. Rarely did you even talk about football with Tiger.

‘He’s talking about your family. He’s talking about his career aspirations, the things he’s learning about. He was a deep, personal person who we really loved.”

Fourteen people were killed in the attack along Bourbon Street, which officials said was inspired by the Islamic State militant group. The driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was fatally shot during a shootout with police after he steered his speeding truck around a barricade and crashed into the crowd. About 30 people were injured.

Bech, 27, died Wednesday morning at a New Orleans hospital, according to local media citing Kim Broussard, the athletic director at St. Thomas More Catholic High. Bech attended high school, where he played wide receiver, quarterback, punt returner and defensive back. NoLa.com reports this.

“He was an excellent young man,” Cannon said News Nation in a separate interview. “If you just took his athletic achievements, especially in football, you could put it in a box here and that legacy would stand alone… but Tiger was much bigger than that.

Bech played wide receiver, quarterback, punt returner and defensive back in high school and began working in the financial industry in New York after graduating from Princeton.

Marty Cannon, the principal of St. Thomas More Catholic High School in Lafayette, Louisiana and Bech’s former coach, described his former student as more than just a football player.

“A big loss for us,” Cannon continued. “He was a wonderful young man… Our community is definitely struggling.”

He would later be accepted and play football at the prestigious Princeton University before graduating in 2021. He most recently worked as an investment trader at a brokerage firm in New York.

Cannon said he was charismatic, intelligent and an incredibly talented football player. He returned home regularly to visit his close-knit family, close friends and people at school.

Of course, Bech was home for Christmas.

“We live in a relatively small community here where not many people leave, but many do,” Cannon said. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that Tiger can move from south Louisiana and get a great education at a place like Princeton, and then lock himself into a community up there and just thrive. He is that kind of person.’

Princeton Tigers football coach Bob Surace said Wednesday he was texting with Bech’s father, sharing memories of the player, who was a college kick returner and receiver from 2017 to 2019 and an All-Ivy returner League honors earned.

“He might be the first Tiger to ever play for us, and that nickname defined him as a competitor,” Surace told ESPN. The school’s mascot is the tiger. “He was someone who somehow, like in the key moments, just excelled and was full of energy, full of life.”

Bech had worked at Seaport Global, where company spokesperson Lisa Lieberman could not confirm his death. She told the AP: “He was extremely highly regarded by everyone who knew him.”

Bech’s younger brother, Jack, is a top wide receiver at Texas Christian University.

Bech can be seen playing at Lafayette, Louisiana’s St. Thomas More Catholic High School

Bech plays for Princeton against the Brown Bears in an Ivy League game

Bech earned All-Ivey honors as a punt returner. He is believed to be the Tigers’ first ‘Tiger’

In response to a KLFY-TV report on You inspired me every day, now you can be with me every moment. I have this family T, don’t worry. This is for us.’

Officials have not yet released the names of the 14 people killed in the New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans, but their families and friends have begun sharing their stories.

Coroner Dr. Dwight McKenna of New Orleans said in a statement late Wednesday that the names of the dead would be released once autopsies are completed and they have spoken to next of kin. A spokesperson for the coroner said Thursday there were no updates. About 30 people were injured.

Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, emphasized that there is no evidence of a link between the attack in New Orleans and Wednesday’s explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel.

The attack plans in New Orleans also include planting crude bombs nearby in an apparent attempt to cause more carnage, officials said. Two improvised explosive devices left in coolers several blocks apart were made safe at the scene. Other devices were determined to be non-functional.

Tiger Bech (left) is pictured after a successful duck hunt in his native Louisiana

Investigators also sought to understand more about Jabbar’s path to radicalization, which they said culminated in him picking up a rented truck in Houston on Dec. 30 and driving it to New Orleans the next night.

The FBI recovered an ISIS black flag from Jabbar’s rented pickup truck and reviewed five videos posted to Facebook, including one in which he said he originally intended to harm his family and friends but ended up worried that news headlines would not focus on the “war between the believers and the unbelievers,” Raia said.

Jabbar also stated that he had joined ISIS before last summer and had made a will, the FBI said.

Jabbar joined the Army in 2007, served on active duty in human resources and information technology and deployed to Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, the service said. He transferred to the Army Reserve in 2015 and left in 2020 with the rank of staff sergeant.

A US government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly, said Jabbar traveled to Egypt in 2023, spending a week in Cairo before returning to the US and then to Toronto traveled. It was not immediately clear what he did during those trips.

Abdur-Rahim Jabbar, Jabbar’s younger brother, told The Associated Press on Thursday that it “doesn’t feel real” that his brother could have done this.

“I never thought it would be him,” he said. “It’s completely different from him.”