JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Edward Waters College held a candlelight vigil Friday night in honor of two prominent staff members who died just a day apart this week.
The vigil remembering Glen Chapman, an assistant football coach for the Tigers, and Eric Johnson, who worked in the athletic department as a photographer, took place on Centennial Lawn in front of the Student Union Building.
Candles were lit as students, staff and loved ones stood in a circle to remember the beloved staff members.
EWC leaders say the entire school is in a state of mourning. They say both Chapman and Johnson played significant roles in the athletic department and will be very much missed.
Glen Chapman, a coaching veteran in the area at the high school level and offensive line coach for the Tigers, became ill at practice Wednesday and later died at a hospital.
Chapman, who played at Ribault and went on to play offensive line and graduate from Bethune-Cookman, was well-known throughout the First Coast. He was also a math teacher at Cedar Creek Christian. News4Jax was told he celebrated his 42nd birthday at the beginning of this month.
Head football coach Greg Ruffin said when he was searching for a new coach, he kept hearing from other coaches across the area that he had to hire Chapman.
"I met with him and I fell in love with the guy, his personality and what he has to bring to the table. Pretty much everybody says the same thing about him," Ruffin said. "Coach did a good job for us this year, with us being able to improve from a winless program to a four-win program with the amount of freshmen we had to coach."
Chapman’s death came a day after EWC lost another member of its staff, photographer Eric Daniel Johnson, a man whom Ruffin called “Mr. Edward Waters College.” Johnson was found unresponsive in his house, the school said.
Johnson, an EWC graduate, was the director of the Communities in Schools of Jacksonville, a program meant to empower students to stay in school and succeed in life. Ruffin said Johnson was everywhere around campus, camera in hand, to capture moments that spanned sports to renovations.
“Eric was a great guy,” he said. “He loved this school, man, he loved this school. He came on football trips and he did all of this at his own expense ... He helped a lot of kids get jobs. He was just phenomenal.”
The causes of death were not announced.