Former NFL Player Ziggy Hood Credited With Preventing Potential School Shooting In Texas After Discussion With Student

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Former NFL player Ziggy Hood is currently an assistant football coach and biology teacher at Palo Duro High School in Texas. While his 10-season, 142-game career in the NFL is quite the accomplishment it doesn't compare to what he recently managed to help stop at his post-football job.

Hood recently spoke with MyHighPlains.com about how he noticed that a student was struggling a bit. He went over and talked with him in hopes of mentoring the young man and would soon discover the student was potentially planning a school shooting.

"After talking with him for a little bit, trying to explain to him, there’s multiple ways of doing about going about this," Hood told the outlet. "And one way was not the way which he had planned."

Ziggy Hood took the time to talk with a student and prevented a potential school shooting in the process. (Photo by George Gojkovich/Getty Images)

Authorities were alerted after Hood's discussion with the student. Shortly thereafter a student was arrested and a weapon was found on the high school grounds.

"Officers Matthews and Pedraza did a wonderful job that day, they protected everybody," Hood said of the officers on campus. "I’m just glad that he didn’t get hurt, somebody else didn’t get hurt, or multiple people, you know, didn’t get hurt."

Eric Mims, the head football coach at Palo Duro, credited the training teachers and coaches go through to spot students who may be struggling.

Credit to Hood for taking the time to speak with the student and, in turn, preventing a horrible tragedy. Not every teacher would take the time and effort to speak with a kid they think may be struggling as Hood did.

Hood, who went to Palo Duro High School himself, is a former first-round pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2009.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets, including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016, when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.