Leaving a lasting legacy

By Jim Henry

jhenry@joplinglobe.com

Sallie Beard has seen Missouri Southern grow from its infant stages.

A 1968 graduate of Joplin High School, she arrived on campus the first year the school changed from a junior college to a four-year school.

“I don’t think I was any different from a lot of kids,” Beard said. “There were some other places that I considered, but this was new. My father (Gilbert Roper) was involved in establishing Missouri Southern and certainly was supportive of getting a four-year college to serve this immediate area. It seemed like kind of a natural.”

After college graduation, she stayed on campus as first an instructor, then a coach, then women’s athletics director, then athletics director. She announced her plans to retire in March, and her final day on the job is Tuesday.

“I can’t imagine having a more exciting, challenging and fulfilling career thn what I’ve had at Missouri Southern,” Beard said. “One of the most rewarding aspects of the job has been to watch young people flourish and expand their education beyond the classroom and through athletics. The strength of this department has always been our student-athletes and coaches, and they will continue to be the strength of Missouri Southern athletics.”

Beard had no idea her Missouri Southern career would last 37 years.

“And I really didn’t think I was going to go into athletics,” she said. “I thought I would be teaching. I feel like I got a great education, had great instructors, and then I was given the opportunity to work here by Dr. (Leon) Billingsly.”

Not for men only

Beard taught classes in Missouri Southern’s majors program for physical education, including gymnastics, swimming, badminton, some dance. She did not participate in sports in high school, and she didn’t in college because Missouri Southern didn’t field any women’s athletic teams.

But in 1974, the scope of Missouri Southern athletics changed, and little did Beard know her life would become athletics.

“I was approached by a group of girls who wanted to start playing basketball,” Beard said. “Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I said ‘Sure, I’ll help.’ So we started practicing in the mornings. Max Oldham was the athletics director at the time, and we started out with a whopping budget of $2,000.”

However, in basketball lingo, that was only the tipoff.

“When that was over, those girls and some others expressed an interest in having softball and tennis, so we started both of those sports in the spring,” Beard said. “I kind of went back and forth coaching both of those sports.”

From basketball to track

Beard coached the Lions’ basketball team for three years, compiling a 35-21 record.

“I stayed in coaching for quite a while because we started out with the three basic sports, then we added volleyball,” Beard said. “When I got out of coaching basketball, that’s when I moved into track, and I coached track and field quite a while.

“That’s where I really developed my coaching skills, I think. I really enjoyed coaching, and at that point, I really didn’t care what sport I coached. But I think I became more knowledgeable in the area of track and field than I did in any of the other sports that I coached.”

Patty Vavra, a standout at Memorial High School in Joplin, was a freshmen on the Lions’ first women’s track team in 1976.

“When Sallie recruited me for basketball, I told her I wanted to run track as well,” said Vavra, now the MSSU women’s track coach. “She was my basketball coach one year, my track coach all four years.

“She was tough as a coach and learning at the same time. She pushed you hard but was happy to see you do well when you did do it.”

Beard’s years as track and field coach opened doors for her nationally and internationally.

“That was back when we were in the NAIA and I wound up being on the national games committee for NAIA (from 1979-83),” she said. “The NAIA put my name in, and I wound up having the opportunity to travel internationally with the U.S. track and field team.

“I traveled with the Olympic team to Romania to participate in the World University Games (in 1981). What a great experience that was because Edwin Moses, Carl Lewis, Carol Lewis, Jackie Joyner-Kersee ... You look back at that group that entertained all of us in how many Olympics, and I was right there, part of the coaching staff. I got to watch them as pups develop into international stars.”

Women’s athletics director

In 1976 Missouri Southern announced it would have two athletics directors — Beard for the women’s department and football coach Jim Frazier for the men’s department.

“I don’t think Jim wanted to do all of it,” Beard said. “He needed time to devote to being the football coach. I think it was a way to deal with the staffing that we had ... how can we take care of all the sports.”

The two-AD system continued for 25 years and naturally there were some problems, but nothing escalated to a major proportion.

“There may have been jealousy, but I don’t feel like it was ever a real point of friction, and I credit Jim Frazier with that,” Beard said. “Jim Frazier was ahead of his time in terms of the way he treated me and the way he looked upon women’s athletics. Certainly he was from the old school, but what Jim Frazier did was recognize that the times were changing, and I couldn’t have asked for a better colleague to work with.

“When there were issues that could have been contentious between us, we said on many, many occasions that our relationship has to be like a second marriage. Jim and I worked at it, worked at working together and making things work. I credit him with that mentality and the willingness to give me the freedom to be the women’s administrator, to respect my opinions and in turn I respected his opinions and we usually ended up in the same place. Sure it was give and take, and yes, there were times when we disagreed, but we always managed to work through it.

“I certainly do look back upon the time that Jim Frazier and I worked as colleagues and those are very special times.”

MSSU athletics director

When Frazier retired in 2001, Beard was named athletics director for the entire department.

“I think the economics dictated it was time to go back to one,” Beard said.

As the AD, Beard oversaw the Lion Pride Restoration Project that replaced the track and artificial football surface at Fred G. Hughes Stadium. Plans are in the works now for more stadium improvements as well as developing 110 acres east of Duchesne Road for use by six varsity sports, including an on-campus baseball field and indoor practice facility.

The hardest part about being an athletics director?

“It’s hiring ... making a good hire is the biggest challenge,” Beard said. “It’s very stressful because you can do your homework, you can read a lot of resumes, you can have a great committee. And despite your best efforts, it still comes down to the intangibles of whether or not it’s really going to work. Hiring is the biggest challenge, to hire the right people to fill the right positions.”

Retirement

Beard readily admits she didn’t envision a prolonged Missouri Southern career.

“It’s the little things that keep you going for 37 years,” Beard said. “It’s seeing the student-athletes walk across the stage at graduation. It’s the look in their eyes when they achieve something they’ve never achieved before in terms of an athletic performance.

“I get a lot of mileage out of watching the student-athlete’s transformation from the freshman year to that fourth or fifth year. It’s remarkable ... they are given so many choices, and they have so many opportunities to make good and bad choices. It’s so rewarding to see most of them make really good choices.”

But after 37 years, Beard believes it’s the right time to step down.

“The last year and a half have really worn me out,” she said. “When you look back at what has happened in the last 16 or 18 months ... there is a 12-month period where three student-athletes died (baseball player Danny Sickles, soccer player Jon Hansen, football player Renard Johnson), I lost a husband (Larry Beard died of cancer last fall), we had to drop two sports (men’s soccer, women’s tennis). That takes a toll on a person’s energy-level.

“This university needs somebody with a very high energy level. There are challenges — and we are no different from any other athletic program across the country — the economic challenges that we are facing are real and they are substantial. That takes a great deal of focus and it takes a great deal of energy. I just felt like it was the right time for someone with a lot of energy to come in here and re-ignite the fire — not that the fire has burned out — and I think we have the people in place for this to happen.”

Looking ahead to retirement, “I’ll have more time for grandchildren,” Beard said. “I have some ideas of things that I want to try, but I’m not going to get very far away from Missouri Southern athletics. That’s for sure.”

Legacy

Since the students’ request for a women’s basketball team 35 years ago, Missouri Southern has grown to offering eight women’s sports. The Lions won the NCAA Division II softball championship in 1992 (Beard, ironically, was tournament director) and they have four conference titles in both softball and basketball, three in cross country, three in track and one each in volleyball and tennis.

“The first thing hat comes to mind to me is the impact of a generation, maybe two, of students, athletes and coaches she’s had in her 37 years,” Vavra said. “Specifically, she almost single-handedly started the women’s athletics program at Missouri Southern. I can’t imagine where we would be and how we would have evolved without Sallie Beard.

“Sometimes in our lives, it’s obvious that God puts a special person in the perfect place at the perfect time. To me for Missouri Southern — specificallyfor women’s athletics — obviously that person is Sallie Beard. She’s always brought a great deal of integrity and respect to Missouri Southern to the national level as well.”

“A lot of people want to focus on my career and what it means to women’s athletics, which is certainly something I take great pride in,” Beard said. “But I hope that my legacy will not be just the women’s athletics. I hope I was a good athletics director for the student-athlete, regardless of what gender. I hope that in time I will be able to say yes, I left my mark on the athletics program, not just women’s athletics.”

Volunteers from Tuscaloosa paying it forward in Joplin

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