It’s been seven months since Ole Miss hired Chris Beard to be the 23rd head coach of the men’s basketball program. After the announcement on March 13, he hit the ground running, making quick moves in his quest to rebuild the Rebels. Beard enters this year as the lone newcomer to the SEC in the coaching ranks.
The Rebel Walk had the opportunity to talk with Coach Beard in an exclusive one-on-one interview earlier this offseason and learn what makes him excited about the program as well as what he’s trying to accomplish. Since his arrival to Oxford, Beard has assembled a staff, recruited new players, re-recruited current players, connected with the fanbase and the ticket holders, and, most importantly, set out a plan to build a winning culture.
The word CULTURE is plastered all over the walls inside the Ole Miss training facility and is one of the more important components on Coach Beard’s mind as he builds the program his way. The new head coach definitely has a vision for that.History speaks for itself as Coach Beard has made improvements to every program he has led in his storied career. His resume is impressive, including a Round of 32 appearance when he was the head coach at Little Rock; NCAA Round of 32, Elite Eight and National Runner-Up appearances at Texas Tech; and a Round of 32 appearance as the head coach of the Texas Longhorns.In speaking with him, Coach Beard makes it clear what culture means to him as well as the importance he places on uniting everyone under the same “umbrella.”“We aren’t different than any other organization — strive to be successful. In our world of college basketball, we’re trying to win a national championship…We want to have an identity, and we want to execute our identity on a daily basis. To do that, we have to first build it. We are in the stages of building our culture. Once we build it then we can begin to start defending it. (We are) trying to get all these people back under one umbrella. We want to unite the family. There’s a lot of history, a lot of tradition, and a lot of success in Ole Miss basketball. I think it’s important to get everybody connected to it involved.“