Former Kansas State star Danny Beard blends loyalty to Wildcats, Washington State

As soon as Washington State’s basketball schedule was released, Danny Beard scrambled for tickets. For the first time in seven years, his alma mater – Kansas State – was coming back to eastern Washington.

This time, the Wildcats would be much closer to home. They’ll travel to Spokane where they’ll meet WSU in a nonconference game at the Spokane Arena on Wednesday night.

Beard purchased 10 tickets and has already put aside a game-day outfit, which includes a purple Kansas State shirt, of course. But after living in Spokane for 35 years, Beard has embraced the crimson red and will wear a WSU jacket over his shirt in support of the Cougars.

He sported the same getup the last time Kansas State stepped inside Cougar country in 2010, when the Wildcats ran away from WSU 70-56 at Beasley Coliseum in Pullman. A few Kansas State staff members recognized Beard among the Cougars fans in the stands that night and pulled him out of the sea of red to meet some of the new administrators sitting behind the K-State bench.

“I had my Cougar stuff on, and when they came I zipped my sweatshirt off and revealed my Kansas State purple pride,” Beard said. “But as soon as I got back in the stands, I put my Cougar stuff back on and zipped it up.”

It’s a daring position to take for a man with deep roots at Kansas State.

Beard, who grew up outside of St. Louis in the small town of Sparta, Illinois, was part of an early 1970s Kansas State group of basketball recruits deemed the Fab Four, which included Lon Kruger, the head coach at Oklahoma, Larry Williams and Gene McVey.

The four freshmen weren’t eligible to play varsity at Kansas State until their second year in Manhattan. At the start of the 1971-1972 season, they walked onto the court together and stunned the nation.

“We were the small-town, farm-boy type, and we just came in and jelled,” Beard said.

The Fab Four pulled the Wildcats back into the top 10 and led the program in two consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight in 1972 and ’73.

Beard, who averaged a career-high 11.3 points in 28 games in 1972, was named to the NCAA Tournament All-Region team in the Midwest.

In his three eligible years with the Wildcats, Beard never had a chance to play Washington State, an original member of the Pac-8 at the time. The only time he traveled to the state was to play the Washington Huskies, who beat the Wildcats in two of three meetings with Beard.

Soon, Beard was drawing the interest of several NBA teams. Midway through his junior year, Beard was sought after by NBA scouts and received letters of interest by the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns.

Those dreams of playing professionally were quickly disrupted during the summer before his final season. Beard was diagnosed with pericarditis, an infection in the areas around the heart that often leads to inflammation and, in Beard’s case, a heart murmur. He was hospitalized for 16 days and forced to miss a month of practice.

The setback led to a mediocre year for Beard in the 1973-1974 season. He averaged 9.2 points in 27 games, not good enough to get his name on the 1974 NBA Draft list.

Beard was encouraged to attend some of the NBA’s open tryouts that summer, but he decided against it.

“I still have the letters,” Beard said. “I still have the envelopes that they came in, but probably, in reality, I wasn’t good enough to play.”

Instead, Beard went on to play for Athletes in Action, a semi-professional team that competed against Division I college teams before the NCAA banned AIA and other noncollegiate programs from preseason play in 2004.

After two years on the court, Beard hung up his uniform and took an assistant coaching job at Samford. He eventually left the Bulldogs to become an assistant coach at Eastern Illinois.

During his coaching days, Beard met Fred Crowell, who founded what is now known as NBC Camps in Spokane. Crowell convinced Beard to come to the Northwest for a week during the summers to help coach young basketball players at the camp.

For six years, Beard planned his annual trip to Spokane to help coach. In 1982, he decided to resign from the Eastern Illinois coaching staff and took up a full-time position at NBC Camps, where he was named the organization’s senior vice president.

Beard was still one of the better players in the area during his first few years in Spokane, until he was humbled in a game of 1-on-1 against Crowell’s son-in-law Shann Ferch, a former collegiate player from Pepperdine.

The battle drew a crowd of NBC Camps players after practice one day. They watched as Ferch finally got the best of Beard.

“Shann ended up beating me on a last-second shot. It was very, very good,” Beard said. “That was probably the first time in a 1-on-1 game situation that I ever really lost.”

It was also the last time Beard attempted to take on another player alone.

That day was imprinted in Ferch’s memory – when he downed the Kansas State great.

“It was one of those moments, kind of a like a rite of passage,” Ferch said.

Beard gave 40 years to NBC Camps before retiring in August this year. Now his focus has shifted to part-time services at the Union Gospel Mission in Spokane while he continues his occasional work as an ordained minister.

Beard also serves on Hoopfest’s Board of Directors and has volunteered during Hoopfest weekend as an elite court official and assistant marshall for 18 years. He also volunteers in Hoopfest’s donation committee and regularly works in the IBA program, an outreach basketball program for students in grades 6-8.

“Danny has been just instrumental to basketball in this community, clearly,” said Matt Santangelo, the executive director of Hoopfest. “(He’s) more kind of this guidance counselor beyond basketball. He’s really just embraced that role.”

Living in Spokane has made it difficult for Beard to get back to the Midwest to see his friends from his glory days in the 1970s. He still keeps in touch with his former teammates, especially his Fab-Four brethren. Beard was recently reunited with Kruger when the Sooners made a trip to Portland to play alongside Gonzaga at the PK80 Invitational in November.

Beard said he likely won’t know anyone from Kansas State when he sees the Wildcats on Wednesday, which makes it hard to switch colors for a day. While most would support their alma maters, Beard will be loyal to his Cougars.

“In my history of playing, in my commitment, in all those blood, sweat and tears, there’s Kansas State. But in all reality, I live out here,” Beard said. “So I’m going to be cheering for the Cougars.”