March 19, 2024
Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports
Jalen Hurts paid for the funeral of Texas high school football player Jarvon Coles, who was killed in a March 10 shooting. Coles played for North Shore High School, a rival of Hurts' Houston-area alma mater, Channelview High School.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts covered the funeral expenses for a high school football player who was killed in a drive-by shooting at a party in Texas earlier this month.
The March 10 shooting happened in the city of Humble, a Houston suburb about 25 miles north of Hurts' hometown of Channelview. Jarvin Coles, a senior at North Shore High School, was found unresponsive in the backyard of a short-term rental house where police had been called for a welfare check due to underage drinking, KHOU 11 reported.
When medics began to perform CPR on Coles, they discovered he had been shot in the chest. He was taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead. Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said it appeared Coles had been intentionally targeted from a car about a block away from the party. No arrests have been made.
Coles was a first-team, all-district linebacker at North Shore, which is a rival of the Channelview High School team that Hurts' father, Averion, has coached for nearly two decades — including during Jalen's time there.
NFL Network analyst Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday that Jalen had read about Coles' death and decided to help his family pay for the funeral held Saturday at Light of the World Christian Fellowship Church.
Just learned that #Eagles QB Jalen Hurts read about the passing of this football player from a rival high school and decided to pay for his funeral expenses. Heartwarming end to a gut-wrenching story. https://t.co/9LyHw8BI2B
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 19, 2024
Hurts also sent a recorded video message to the family to play during the funeral service.
Coles' family said Coles had been planning to attend Lamar University and had a 4.1 GPA in high school.
"You cannot measure the impact he had on and off the field in our program," North Shore Assistant Football Coach Kyle Herridge wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Truly an incredible human being."
Hurts has been involved in several initiatives to combat gun violence. Two years ago, he partnered with the Eagles, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Philadelphia police on a gun buy-back program held at Lincoln Financial Field and worked with Penn Medicine on an awareness campaign.
"With gun violence, it's important to help people through their physical recovery, but it's just as important to help them through their mental recovery," Hurts said. "If we all understand the consequences of gun violence, we can be better at helping those it affects and bringing an end to it."
