Chris Beard did the good deed he didn’t have to do but did anyway, and the Ole Miss basketball coach wanted to explain more about it after Wednesday night’s SEC showdown against Alabama.
Following the Crimson Tide’s 93-74 victory in Oxford over his team that came without Bama center Charles Bediako, who was ruled ineligible by a judge on Monday night, Beard talked about the personal note he wrote to Bediako in support. It was a move that Alabama coach Nate Oats couldn’t say enough kind words about as he started his postgame news conference with reporters after the big road victory.
“It was one of the classiest notes to a kid from an opposing coach, and it doesn’t happen often, and it was one of the classiest moves I’ve ever seen,” Oats said on Wednesday night.
Beard explained his motives that led to writing the note to the embattled Bediako, who returned to the Alabama program for 5 games before he was deemed ineligible, starting with Wednesday night’s game. Alabama won in Oxford without him anyway, but it didn’t mean that Bediako wasn’t on everyone’s mind, including the Ole Miss coach who would’ve been facing him had he continued to be eligible.
Instead of coaching against Bediako on Wednesday night, Beard had a special message for the player, and it came in the form of that note.
“That’s a personal deal. I was just thinking about Charles as a human being. I don’t know him. He’s a good player. … I have no dog in the fight in terms of the whole situation, but I do know there’s a human being involved,” Beard explained to reporters.
Beard wanted Bediako to feel his support in the present and for the future with that note.
“Just as many people have to me in my life, I think as a human being we can encourage other people,” Beard said. “It was a personal thing. I was just writing Charles the human being a letter and letting him know there’s a lot of people out there pulling for him in his next basketball step.”
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
