Texas Tech basketball: Chris Beard’s best press conferences

After the National Title Game

From the moment that he arrived, Chris Beard has told anyone who would listen that he intended on coaching on the final Monday night of the season.  He got that opportunity in 2019 but his team fell to Virginia in OT.

It’s in the most troubling and painful moments that we learn the most about each other.  That’s certainly true of the current pandemic that has us all living a new normal and it is true of sports figures when they suffer crushing defeats on the grandest of stages.

Facing the largest media gathering of his career just moments after the most gutting loss of his life, Beard was brilliant.  It wasn’t just one particular quote or insightful remark that impressed.  Rather, it was the way he carried himself with dignity while also being vulnerable enough to allow his genuine emotions to come to the surface.

Thanking his players, he became choked up.  That only served to endear him even more to his team and to the Red Raider family as we felt those same emotions at that moment.

He also was gracious in complementing Virginia, something that not everyone can be in moments of utter agony.  After all, most of us in the same situation would have been too bitter about the handful of missed calls and controversial decisions that went against Tech to be able to say anything kind about anyone, especially the team that benefitted from our misfortune.

Think about how tough it would be to have to answer to a crowd of reporters just minutes after you learn that you didn’t get the promotion, that your pitch was rejected, or that your business had lost its largest client.  How many of us would be able to be gracious and thankful in moments such as that?

But that’s what Beard was following the National Title Game in what was his best but also worst moment as a head coach thus far.  Hopefully, the next time he has a press conference on a Monday night in April, he’ll stride to the podium with a net draped around his neck.