Chris Beard
Chris Beard
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Chris Beard

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Chris Beard

Christopher Michael Beard (born February 18, 1973) is an American basketball coach who is the head men's coach at University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). He also previously served as head coach at Texas, Texas Tech, Little Rock, Angelo State, and McMurry. Beard graduated from high school from McCullough High School in The Woodlands, Texas. He was a manager at Texas under former Longhorns coach Tom Penders, graduating in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science degree in kinesiology. He received a Masters of Education from Abilene Christian University where he served as a graduate assistant in 1998.

Under Beard's watch, the Texas Tech Red Raiders made the deepest NCAA Tournament runs in school history. In 2019, the Red Raiders won a school-record 31 games on the way to the 2019 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Game against the Virginia Cavaliers. He was recognized as the 2019 AP National Coach of the Year.

Beard was born in Marietta, Georgia and grew up in Irving, Texas, before moving to The Woodlands, Texas as a high schooler. Beard attended McCullough High School (now The Woodlands High School) where he was a shooting guard on the basketball team. Beard turned down offers to play college basketball to be a student manager at the University of Texas.

After serving as a student manager and student assistant at the University of Texas for Tom Penders and a graduate assistant at Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian, Beard was an assistant coach at North Texas from 1997 to 1999.

From there, Beard was hired as head coach at Fort Scott Community College where he coached the team to a 19–12 record and its first winning season in 8 years. In 2000, he was hired as the head coach at Seminole State College. In his one year there he went 25–6 and finished ranked 14th in the country.

Following that season, Beard was hired as an assistant and later associate head coach at Texas Tech to work under the legendary Bob Knight. During his time at Texas Tech, the Red Raiders made four NCAA tournament appearances along with a trip to the NIT Final Four. Chris Beard spent 10 years coaching at Texas Tech under Bob Knight and his son Pat Knight, often citing the influence of the two men as his keys to success.

Beard also spent one year as head coach for the South Carolina Warriors of the American Basketball Association, where he led the team to a 29–2 record. On March 8, 2012, Beard was hired as head coach at Lamar State College–Port Arthur, but resigned six days later for the same position at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, where he spent one season. In March 2013, he was hired as the sixth head coach at Angelo State. In two years with the Rams, he went 47–15.

On April 8, 2015, Beard was named the head coach of Arkansas–Little Rock.

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