Shreveport Journal sportswriter Teddy Allen paid a visit to Northwestern State during the 1986-87 season. With his permission, NSU Sports Information published the following article...
Don Beasley is cruising along Highway 494 just outside Natchitoches with a satisfied mind. He's full of chicken fried steak and rice thanks to Lasyone's Restaurant and he's full of memories of the past thanks to a boyhood spent in the town he's returned to after 14 years on the road.
It's one of those afternoons you'd bottle if you could. The sky is the color of a boy's baby blanket, the temperature is comfortable. The day fits Beasley, who practiced his team during the morning and will do the same again in a couple of hours. The season is only five weeks old and already his team has won more games than it did either of the previous two seasons before he became head coach in the spring of 1985, leaving his job as Hugh Durham's top assistant at Georgia.
"I figures here was an opportunity to do the things I'd like to do now," Beasley says. "For one, it's a homecoming for me. Two, the program was in bad shape, so anything positive would be a step up. Three, my personal pride was at stake. I mean, this had been my home. Once they asked me to come back, it only took a short period of time for me to decide."
"I'm glad I came back," he says, and the whole time he never stops grinning. "I'm comfortable in what we've done since we've been here."
He stops talking and the grin becomes laughter. "This is hard to explain, but most of the things that happen to me just happen," he says. "It's like they're predetermined. Like Zap, they just happen. I'm talking about crazy stuff."
How crazy? Well, for instance ...
As a student at Northwestern, Beasley found he could cut psychology class easily since the professor never looked up as he was calling roll each day. The professor would call "Beasley," and one of his friends would answer "Here."
"We'd be sitting around the student center and one of the guys would say, 'Hey, Beaz, you going to class?'" he said. "And I's say, 'you know it,' No way was I going."
One day, the professor called Beasley's name and two of his friends answered " here" at the same time. for once, the professor looked up. "Mr. Beasley, are you here?" he asked. No one answered. "Someone tell Mr. Beasley we'll sit in alphabetical order next class." he said.
Beasley had no choice but to start going to class. The girl behind him, in alphabetical order, was Georgia Blair. Five-and-a-half years later, her last name was changed to Beasley. They've been married 18 years.
" I had to ask him to take me to the winter ball, "Georgia Beasley said. "He did, and that did it."
Just out of curiosity, what was the coach's big selling point?
"He really did make me laugh," Georgia said.
Crazy, right? Well, how about this:
In 1983, Georgia finished tied for fifth in the Southeastern Conference and Beasley was an assistant coach. Then the SEC Tournament came, with the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament going to the winner. Things got weird.
"This is more wacky than me meeting my wife," is how Beasley puts it.
First, Georgia won the SEC Tournament in a rout. Then came the NCAAs, which included a victory over Virginia Commonwealth on a last-second tip-in. Then one day Georgia beats St. John's -- you remember, Chris Mullin and those guys -- and two days later it has North Carolina down by 20 in the East Regional and it's on its way to the Final Four.
"It was like getting in a car that's already moving and you just hang on, "Beasley said. "I'm telling you, stuff just happens to me sometimes."
To a degree, Beasley is right. He had to be born with an awful lot of God-given ability to make all-state teams in football and basketball at Natchitoches High and All-Gulf States Conference twice as a quarterback at Northwestern. And in the years since 1965 when he became a graduate assistant basketball coach at NSU, he's seen his share of bad bounces and improbable tip-ins.
Sometimes, stuff happens.
However, Beasley seems to have a way of helping fate along. A sign on his desk reads, "If you don't make dust, you eat dust." Beasley is a mover and a shaker. He's a dust-maker.
"All the years I was an assistant coach, there was that constant thought in my head every year that I had to get another great player," Beasley said. "That's enough to keep you extremely motivated. And I still have a tremendous guilt feeling when I don't work everyday to get better at something. Sometimes people forget that what winning involves basically is good work habits. It takes a lot of tail-busting."
Beasley learned that early on. When he was a boy, his father worked at a grocery store and his mother at a department store. They changed residences several times but never moved from Natchitoches. there was little money and he was the oldest of five children. The youngest was born when he was 18.
"I can remember him going squirrel hunting before school and selling them for a dollar apiece to have money to take me out," Georgia said. "Even after I was teaching school and he was a graduate assistant before we were married, he'd hardly ever let me pay for anything."
Although he'd starred collegiately in football. Beasley became a graduate assistant in basketball simply to have job. That was in 1965. From 1966 until now, he served as an assistant except for three years when he was head coach at Jacksonville University. During that time he beat the bushes for players like Dominique Wilkins and Jeff Malone, and he ended up looking more at home in a motel room that a Gideon Bible. His last boss was Durham at Georgia.
"He was probably the best I worked for from the standpoint of day-to-day drive," Beasley said. "He was the best at getting it done when you had to, when it wasn't comfortable."
Such was the situation two years ago at Northwestern, which is still trying to recover from problems that touch every part of the university. The basketball team's 3-25 record in 1984-85 was a fair gauge of how things were all over campus when the call went out for Beasley to at least bring about some basketball salvation.
"I believe that with apathy comes opportunity," Beasley said. "We couldn't go anywhere but up. What I had to do was convey something positive. Hey, the players were at a point where they would believe anything. They'd lost the drive, and when you lose the drive, you lose what makes you great."
Last season, the Demons lost their first five games to Kentucky, Alabama, SMU, McNeese State and Louisiana Tech. But eight wins in their last 10 games left them at 11-16 and 7-3 in the Gulf Star Conference, good for second place.
"By the end of the season, he had them convinced they weren't losers, "Georgia said. "They trusted him when he told them if they'd do this and this they'd win. And they did. Before that, they were used to losing."
This year, the Demons are 9-6.
"To say we'll be in the Final Four at this point is unrealistic," Beasley said. "My first thoughts were that we want to be respected in the immediate area. Looking at the horizon and how good we can be is hard to describe. But when we got here, we had the third-worst power rating (according to USA Today) in Division I. Now we're in the top third. I think that's something very meaningful; it proves we're getting the job done."
Beasley feels that's the only way to get people into Prather Coliseum. His past won't sell many tickets.
"We're a little bit like the entertainment business," he said. "You've got to play hard and that's the way to develop a following. I'm not going to promote something that's not there. I want people to come see us because we have a good team, not for sentiment's sake."
Sentiment. It would be hard to believe Beasley would know the word if you ever saw him have more than casual small talk with a player loafing at practice. Beasley can sound something like a freight train coming right down the middle of the gym if he feels it's necessary. The thing is , the life is back in practice now and the Demons are winning mor than they're losing.
Beasley hasn't spent much time thinking past this year or the next game. He only knows he has "never entertained the thought of not being a coach" and that at this time, Northwestern is the place for him. It's plenty of challenge, and it's plenty of memories for a 44-year-old to come home to.
"We used to park right over there," Georgia Beasley said, pointing out the window of her office where she works as Director of Admissions for the university. "I remember our first kiss was down by the riverbank during Christmas. And he asked me to marry him by this tree on campus. When we moved back, we found that tree and I made him give me another kiss."
Like he said, things just happen to the guy. Crazy things. Like maybe finding the perfect girl, or like maybe a 3-25 program making a run at a conference title two years later.
"The unbelievable has happened before," Georgia said. "Remember, we were at Georgia."
Maybe someday it can happen at home.
