Friends and family are mourning the loss of an assistant Birmingham high school football coach who was fatally shot in what police say was a domestic incident.
Demetrice Darnell Beverly, 39, was killed Wednesday night at Lakeshore Ridge Apartments. A suspect is in custody.
Beverly’s slaying has been a hard hit to those who knew and loved him.
“He was a loving, caring father brother, son, husband,” said his father, Antonio Cook. “He was just a good guy.”
Beverly was a graduate of Parker High School, where he played football and baseball.
He returned to his alma mater in 2020 as a part-time assistant football coach.
“Coach Beverly (Meat) gave his all to the Thundering Herd on the field and in our community,” Parker High Athletics posted on Facebook. “He was a mentor, husband, father, and friend whose impact will live on through the countless lives he touched.”
Birmingham’s South Precinct officers responded shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday to a 911 call of a person shot at the apartment complex.
Police went into the apartment and found Beverly unresponsive in the apartment’s bedroom.
His father said he had been shot multiple times by the woman’s boyfriend. He was pronounced dead on the scene at 9:26 p.m.
The woman was the one who called 911.
The suspect was taken into custody in the parking lot of the complex. Formal charges have not yet been announced.
After graduating Parker, Beverly attended University of Arkansas Pine Bluff where he played football four years.
“He loved football,” Cook said. “That was his calling.”
Beverly previously coached at Carver High School, but he stopped working there when a new football administration was hired.
Beverly was disappointed, but his father encouraged him to stick with coaching.
“I was like, ‘God’s got you,’ and then Parker came up and he was as happy as he could be,” Cook said.
Parker in 2024 won its first-ever state championship.
“He loved it more than ever,” Cook said.
Beverly also worked at Children’s of Alabama, where he was an overnight manager in the pediatric psychiatric unit.
He had just attended his father’s 60th birthday party over the weekend.
“My son was there, representing his dad,” Cook said. “And then I was in bed last night and police called me about 10 p.m. and said he’d been shot.”
Beverly leaves behind twin daughters who live in Arkansas and are high school juniors. He and his wife shared a 6-year-old daughter.
“He was wonderful,” his father said. “Just a good, God-fearing guy.”
Beverly’s death happened just one week before the Stop the Violence Classic, an annual game between Parker High School and Ramsay High School that’s goal is building safer communities.
“It highlights what our kids go through every day,” said Frank Warren, Parker’s head football coach.
“Most of our kids in Birmingham have been affected by gun violence and we try to let them know that’s not the way to go.”
Warren said he learned of Beverly’s killing about 2 a.m. Thursday.
“When you get a call at that time you know it’s nothing good,” he said.
Warren and Beverly met when they coached together at Carver. He described his friend as a good father, husband, coach, mentor, and a good person.
“When I got my head job, he was one of the first people I called,” Warren said. “He’d give you the shirt off his back.”
“He brought energy every day,” he said. “He brought the best out of these kids.”
“He’d work overnight and be the first one here with the energy,” Warren said. “He was tired some days, but he brought his all every day.”
Warren said telling the players Thursday morning about Beverly’s death was one of the hardest things he’s had to do in his career.
Beverly was a like a brother to him, and Warren was a groomsman in his wedding.
“I had to face that reality,” he said. “I didn’t just lose a coach. I lost a friend.”
“It just shows you one day you’re hear and the next you can be gone,” Warren said.
“We were all at practice yesterday,” he said. “That’s how fast life can be taken from you.”
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