Texas Tech basketball: Chris Beard proved to be nothing but a fraud

Now that he’s departed Lubbock for Austin, we can safely say that the rhetoric Chris Beard spewed over the last five years was nothing but malarkey.

Move over Tommy Tuberville. There’s a new most hated former Texas Tech coach in West Texas, Chris Beard.

But what makes this week’s inimical divorce so different from 2012’s split with Tuberville is the fact that all of the Texas Tech fan base embraced Beard with open arms. And with the successes he had on the court, he became the most beloved figure in West Texas since Bob Wills.

Part of what made Beard so popular with his Red Raider constituency was his every-man persona. At times self-deprecating and always somewhat “aw shucks”, he developed a following in Raiderland in part because of his many sayings and witticisms, which endeared him to the good people of the South Plains.

However, we now can see those tactics for what they were, an act. In the end, his rhetoric and catchphrases proved to be hollow and nothing more than the leavings of a large farm animal. That’s because, when the first opportunity hit for Beard to take the cushiest of jobs, he jumped.

The man who once referred to Texas Tech as his dream job turned down a lifetime contract offer from Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt. The man who said at his introductory press conference that Texas Tech was home skipped town without even letting Tech administration present a counteroffer to UT’s enticements. The man who spoke so often about wanting his program to have a street-dog mentality jumped ship for the school in the nation most known for being a country club. Heck, Texas even allows celebrities like Matthew McConaughey to roam the bench area and the sidelines as some type of trumped-up minister of culture. It doesn’t get any less street dog than that.

Ultimately, Beard proved to be nothing more than another in a long line of college coaching charlatans. He put on a show that he knew would play well with his audience only to show his true colors when a perceived better opportunity came along.

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But what’s ironic is that Texas isn’t a better job than Texas Tech anymore. UT hasn’t the facilities that Texas Tech has now that the Womble Practice Facility in Lubbock is essentially complete. UT doesn’t have an arena that compares to the United Supermarkets Arena and they won’t have that when the new arena in Austin opens in a little over a year, especially considering that they won’t own that facility.

Most importantly, Texas doesn’t have a fan base that gives half of a darn about basketball. Sure, if Chris Beard turns them into a national power as Rick Barnes did in the 2000s, people will show up more than they have been lately. But Texas basketball will always be the sport that kills time in between the end of football season and spring football. The fans in burnt orange will never fill up another team’s arena the way Tech fans have come to do in places like Austin, Waco, and Fort Worth.

Why Beard left the program he built into a yearly national factor only he knows and we never will. But what we can be certain of is that Beard was full of two things during his time here in Lubbock; he was full of bull and full of himself.

In fact, he was so spiteful towards his now-former employer that he waited to announce his decision on April 1, the day when his buyout would decrease by a million dollars. That one final middle finger to Texas Tech is almost fitting though because it shows just how Beard felt about Texas Tech, the university that gave him the opportunity to become one of the biggest names in the sport.

Beard didn’t care about Texas Tech. He only cared about himself. Sure, he talked a good game and when it is time for his new school to face off with his old one next season, he’ll tell us that no one respects Texas Tech more than he does.

But Texas Tech fans have had our eyes opened in the most painful of ways, almost like walking out of a movie theater into the bright afternoon sun. We now see Chris Beard for what he really is, a self-centered huckster who put on an elaborate show that we all bought hook, line, and sinker.

In the end, Beard proved to be the basketball version of Tommy Tuberville. He was never intent on staying in Lubbock for the long haul despite all of his faux sincerity about how much he loved the university and West Texas. The only difference between the two is that Beard had the ego to waltz right out the front door and into the arms of a hated rival rather than sneaking out of a steakhouse in the middle of a recruiting dinner.

But make no mistake, Beard has now supplanted Tuberville as the most hated former Red Raider walking the face of the earth. And it’s all because he, unlike Tuberville, told us what he knew we wanted to hear. And we all fell for it. But now, it is clear that what the persona Beard was selling was nothing but a farce. Just like the notion that Texas basketball is a better opportunity than the one Beard had in Lubbock.

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