Don’t discount lessons Chris Beard learned coaching in junior colleges

The question was about where he came from, what reaching this particular moment meant, how he was shaped at various spots along the back roads of what can be a long and often difficult track of anonymity that is a young college basketball coach finding his way.

Chris Beard, his voice hoarse from shouting instructions the previous few hours, looked into the camera and spoke about such a challenge.

“I do take the responsibility seriously,” Beard said. “There are a lot of junior-college coaches and Division II coaches out there that deserve a chance. I’m proud that we have represented all those guys well.”

This was early March and Arkansas Little-Rock had just won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament title, continuing a magical season that would be Beard’s first and only leading the program. The Trojans would then upset Purdue in an NCAA Tournament game before being eliminated by Iowa State in the second round.

It was the sort of run — a 30-5 record, winning a game on the sport’s grandest stage — that has led Beard to being hired as head coach at UNLV.

It took some fortune: Beard will likely thank many from his past when being introduced to the Las Vegas community, and a special dose should be reserved for Josh Hagins, a senior guard at Little-Rock whose 3-pointer from the edge of the half-court logo sent the NCAA game against Purdue into overtime, won by Beard’s side 85-83 in two OTs.

If Hagins doesn’t make that high-arching attempt — or if Purdue coach Matt Painter does as he should have and elected to foul up three — Little-Rock likely doesn’t win and there is every chance Beard coaches a second season in the land of cheese dogs and the famous Big Dam Bridge. That’s how significant NCAA wins have become to those hiring coaches. That’s how intoxicating it is for presidents and athletic directors to land someone who has had any success in March.

More importantly, it takes hard work: Beard’s head coaching stops include time at community colleges in Seminole State and Fort Scott, a level that demands coaches travel to places far and wide and often unknown to discover players. Another man who once coached UNLV also rose from the junior-college ranks. His name: Jerry Tarkanian.

Nobody in the their right mind — which eliminates half of Twitter — would dare mention anyone with one season of Division I head coaching experience in the same context as the late Hall of Fame coach for the Rebels, but it’s also true many of the game’s brightest minds over the years spent time at the junior-college level before ascending the coaching ladder.

Names like Lute Olson and Eddie Sutton and Gene Keady.

Said one Mountain West head coach on Monday: “There aren’t any golden spooners with (junior college coaches). They know how to grind and work. They find a way to make it the hard way.”

The Rebels had reached a point in their search for a coach that no matter who they ultimately hired, he would arrive with a definite level of risk. There are only so many sure-things in the profession nowadays and UNLV of 2016 isn’t ever going to be seriously involved with such an elite name manning their sideline.

This is, as much as anything, a hire made from the collective guts by those at UNLV.

How can’t it be? There isn’t near enough evidence about Beard’s long-term viability as a major college head coach to suggest this will either be a glorious success story or failed experiment. It could go either way.

But when you peel back the onion a little more and study Beard’s many stops — Las Vegas will be his fifth coaching job since 2011, the year Dave Rice was hired to lead the Rebels — you notice there is a fairly consistent theme: He just wins.

He has taken what were dispatched lumps of clay and molded them into impressive pieces of art, having never posted a losing season as a head coach. UNLV is a huge step up, beginning with a fan base whose expectations are rarely sensible and yet always expressed. But there is no question Beard at least comes with a blueprint that has always produced positive results.

I like that he coached and was successful at smaller divisions, that he understands how to grind, that he worked his way up from a level where there are no golden spooners. I also like how he answered another question posed to him following the Sun Belt Conference Tournament final, about how the Trojans managed to stage the nation’s biggest turnaround in number of wins from last season.

“Good players, no doubt about it,” Beard said. “The players deserve all the credit. We told the guys when we got the job that we need you to be better versions of yourself and we told recruits we needed them to come in and help immediately.”

He doesn’t need to change a word in his message to those he will coach at UNLV.

He’s about to be handed another dispatched lump of clay.

It will take his best molding job yet to make UNLV’s gut feel a reality.

Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. On Twitter: @edgraney