High School

Football coach among the dead in Georgia high school shooting

Defensive coordinator Richard Aspinwall was a math teacher at the Winder, Georgia school

Colin Hubbard

Richard Aspinwall, a math teacher and the defensive coordinator for the school's football team, is among the four who were killed in Wednesday's mass shooting at Apalache High School in Georgia.
Richard Aspinwall, a math teacher and the defensive coordinator for the school's football team, is among the four who were killed in Wednesday's mass shooting at Apalache High School in Georgia. / Apalache High School

Richard Aspinwall, who served as a math teacher and football coach, was among four killed in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, Wednesday morning. A 14-year old Apalachee student is in custody and has been charged with the murders which occurred during an assault which also injured nine individuals.

Aspinwall was hired at Apalachee in 2023 as the school’s defensive coordinator after previously coaching football at Mountain View High School in Lawrenceville, Georgia. According to online reports, Aspinwall was killed in the doorway of his classroom while trying to guide students from the hallway to safety.

In 2022, Aspinwall was honored with the Touchdown Club of Gwinnett’s Tally Johnson Award as Assistant Coach of the Year, earning widespread respect as a defensive coach. He also served as a track and field coach at Mountain View.

Reports of the shooting first came in just after 10 a.m. ET on Wednesday and police were on the scene minutes later. The suspect immediately surrendered and was taken into custody.

Many of Aspinwall’s former students at Mountain View took to social media to honor their fallen coach whose life was cut well too short in Wednesday morning’s senseless shooting. 

Barrow County Sherriff Jud Smith told reporters that there is no known connection between the shotter and the victims.

"This is a very, very fluid investigation," Smith said in a news conference outside the school. "What you see behind us is an evil thing."

President Joe Biden reacted to the shooting.

"What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart," Biden said. "Students across the country are learning how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write. We cannot continue to accept this as normal."

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Colin Hubbard

COLIN HUBBARD

Colin Hubbard is a skilled sports media professional as both a writer and a photographer. He served for more than two years as the sports editor of the Rockdale/Newton Citizen in Atlanta and as the Georgia Tech beat writer for Greater Atlanta. Colin is an expert in the coverage of prep sports, having served as a freelancer with the Gwinnett Daily Post and The Paper of Baselton. He has been covering Georgia high school sports for SBLive Sports Georgia since 2022.

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