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CV NEWS FEED // St. Thomas More High School in Lafayette, Louisiana, is mourning the death of alumnus Tiger Bech, one of 15 people killed in a suspected terrorist attack on New Year’s Day.
Kim Broussard, the athletic director of St. Thomas More, confirmed that Bech died in a New Orleans hospital shortly after an ISIS member used a pickup truck to plow into a crowd on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street in the early morning of Jan. 1, 2025, according to news outlet Nola.
St. Thomas More held a prayer vigil in the school’s chapel for those who were killed or harmed in the attack.
The suspect, a 42-year-old man named Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran, joined ISIS as an adult, according to CNN. Jabbar was killed by police in crossfire after the attack.
Broussard stated that Bech suffered catastrophic internal bleeding after the truck hit him. The hospital kept him on life support until his family arrived. Bech died in the late morning of Jan. 1, according to Nola.
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Bech, who graduated in 2021 from Princeton University, worked at a New York brokerage firm and was visiting his hometown for Christmas. His visit included spending time with one of the coaches, Marty Cannon, whom he played football for at St. Thomas More in his senior year.
Cannon, who is now St. Thomas More’s principal, told Nola, “Throughout that year, I got to know Tiger and I found this tremendous depth to him and this maturity. What may look sometimes as overconfidence to some and maybe even arrogance was really just this deep, deep person that you just get attracted to. He was just such a special guy.”
Bech’s former high school teammate, Trevor Begue, also remembered Bech as a great role model.
“He was a great player and a great person,” Begue said. “We all looked up to him. He was the leading receiver in that room. He made everything look so effortlessly [sic]. He was a willing teacher, because I didn’t play that position at first. I was a running back. … He brought me up his wing and really taught me the position. He was a really humble guy.”
Bech would go on to play for Princeton. His younger brother, Jack, who followed in his brother’s footsteps by playing in high school and at Louisiana State University, wrote in an X post after Tiger’s death, “Love you always brother! You inspired me everyday now you get to be with me in every moment. I got this family T, don’t worry. This is for us.”
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