Chris HixonIt is the first time in the 25-year history of the ESPYs that the coaching award will not be presented to coaches strictly for their work on the field, according to the ESPN announcement.
The three Stoneman Douglas coaches are being honored for "their immeasurable bravery in the face of danger and for their ultimate sacrifice to protect the lives of countless students," said Alison Overholt, vice president and editor in chief of ESPN The Magazine.
Chris Hixon, 49, had been named Broward County Athletic Association's athletic director of the year just last year. The native of Easton, Pa. had a long career as a coach and in sports administration in high schools in south Florida, interrupted only by a deployment to Iraq as a U.S. Naval Reservist in 2007. Hixon left behind a wife and two children.
Hixon was recently honored posthumously at the Celebrate Wrestling eventsponsored by the Princeton, N.J. chapter of Wrestlers In Business Network. An American flag fashioned of metal and inscribed with a message honoring coach Hixon's heroism will be presented to the Florida school.
Aaron Feis, assistant football coach at Stoneman Douglas, was described in an Associated Press report as "someone who counseled those with no father figure and took troubled kids under his wing. He was always there for the students, whether it was chatting in his golf cart or helping them fix their cars. No one was surprised when they learned Feis died shielding students."
In reports immediately after the shooting, Stoneman Douglas head football coach Willis May said Hixon and Feis both served as school security guards. May labeled both coaches as heroes because they ran toward the scene to try to help others to safety, saying, "when something goes down, they are the first ones to rush in."
Scott Beigel, 35-year-old cross-country coach and geography teacher, "helped students enter a locked classroom to avoid the gunman, and paid for the brave act with his life," according to the AP. "Several surviving students said they don't think they would be alive without Beigel's help."
Danica Patrick will host the ESPY awards broadcast on ABC-TV on July 18.
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