Texas Tech basketball: Chris Beard shows off back tattoo in Twitter video

Monday, Texas Tech basketball head coach Chris Beard fulfilled a promise and showed off his back tattoo on Twitter in a move that further shows why he is the most popular coach on campus.

Chris Beard is not afraid to beg. Particularly, the Texas Tech basketball head coach has made a habit of doing whatever he can to generate engagement within the student body. Since his arrival, he has gone out of his way to beg Texas Tech students to show up to United Supermarket Arena. This year, he has struck gold with a series of social media videos that have helped endear him even further to Red Raider fans.

Each week this season, the Texas Tech basketball program has released a short “fireside chat” video, geared towards the student body, featuring Beard and a guest talking bout the upcoming schedule, passing along special announcements and giving tips on music, life and restaurants. Monday, Beard took his efforts to the extreme in his latest fireside chat.

In recent weeks, the subject of tattoos have become a recurring theme in the videos. On the January 7th fireside chat, Beard was joined by assistant coach Max Lefevre and promised that if the Red Raiders beat Oklahoma, Lefevre would show off his entire back-piece tattoo.

Three days later, Lefevre kept Beard’s promise. In that video, Beard promised to show off his own back tattoo if Tech won in Austin, which as we know now, it did to end a 22-game losing streak in the state capital.

And on Monday, Beard was true to his word. Not surprisingly, his tattoo is a version of his trademark 4:1 motto. Becoming the mantra of the Texas Tech basketball program, 4:1 was derived from a lesson Beard learned when working under Bob Knight at Texas Tech in the 2000’s.

https://twitter.com/TexasTechMBB/status/1084981515094679552

Knight often told his team that the mental aspect of basketball is to the physical as four is to one. In other words, the mental aspect of the game is four times more important than the physical.

4:1 has come to define everything that is Texas Tech basketball. Whether it be a ratio of passes to shots or just a reminder of how important the often overlooked aspect of the game can be, Beard has made 4:1 his trademark phrase.

But what stands out most about the fireside chats is how it proves that Chris Beard gets it. He has embraced his goofy side and his self-deprecating humor has struck the right chord with the fan base.

Whether it be his obsession with Whataburger, the fact that he compared coaching Keenan Evans to eating enchiladas during last year’s NCAA Tournament run or his good-natured remarks about a local media member’s hat during a press conference, Beard has done what former Texas Tech football head coach Kliff Kingsbury tired unsuccessfully to do. He has connected with the fan base by allowing us to see who he is as a person.

This is not to criticize Kingsbury. He had many faults as head coach but he put forth every effort towards trying to build the football program. But for some reason, his attempts at using social media did not work as well as Beards’ have.

If you remember back to Kingsbury’s first two years on the job, he was extremely active on social media. Prior to a spring practice, he participated in a dance-off with he team and no one could forget the epic ice bucket challenge video in which the fire department doused the entire team as the Masked Rider galloped across the practice field.

But after a dismal 4-8 2014 season, Kingsbury’s naturally reclusive personality took over as he virtually stopped trying to engage his constituency on social media. As the media began to criticize Kingsbury for the first time in his coaching career and the pejorative “coach bro” moniker began to take hold, he seemed to recede into his safe zone which was deep inside the recesses of the football facility.

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And it was not all his fault. In truth, society loves to tear people down, especially those we envy. Kingsbury’s rise to prominence had brought him notoriety for his style and appearance as much as for his career accomplishments and when the general public had their first opportunity to bring him down, they took full advantage.

Thus far, Beard’s job performance has left little room for criticism. After having led Texas Tech to the Elite 8 for the first time ever last year, he has his team atop the Big 12 standings and ranked No. 8 in the nation.

But there is also an aspect of the every-man to Chris Beard. He does not look like a Hollywood movie star and he will never be a trendsetter or pop culture figure making him far more relatable to the general populace.

We like Kliff Kingsbury and many of us want to swap lives with him if for only a day or so. But we relate to Chris Beard and see some of ourselves in him. We don’t want to be him, we just want to have a beer with him. I don’t know how many times my friends and I have discussed how great it would be to simply be Chris Beard’s friend and in a way, we feel like we are simply because of how approachable and welcoming he comes across as.

We’ve now seen both Kingsbury and Beard shirtless on social media and the differences are rather symbolic. Where as Kingsbury was photographed showing off his ridiculous physique next to girls in bikinis furthering most men’s jealously towards him, Beard sheepishly showed off part of his dad-bod in yet another shameless attempt to connect with the Texas Tech students and fan base.

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It was a perfect example of why Chris Beard has connected with Red Raiders across the board in a way that no coach since Spike Dykes has been able to. And it explains why he is the perfect fit at a university that, like its basketball coach, has often been a bit quirky and unusual and has had to achieve success by blazing its own trail.

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