Beasley Inducted into Beeville Hall of Fame
By Jeanne Acton, Journalism Director | Tuesday, October 02, 2012 9:05 AM
Assistant Athletic Director Darryl Beasley accepted his award in his hometown Beeville.
Darryl Beasley has lived sports all his life. He played high school and college basketball. He coached at both the high school and college level. And for the past eight years, Beasley has been an assistant athletic director at the League.
So it probably wouldn’t be a shock to anyone that his hometown, Beeville, inducted him into its Hall of Fame this month.
But it was to Beasley.
“The call came out of the blue,” he said. “I didn’t expect it.”
Maybe he should have.
In high school, Beasley was a three-year letterman for the Beeville Trojan basketball team. He was the leading scorer in the district his senior year and won all-state honors that year. In college at Wayland Baptist University, Beasley was a four-year letterman on the basketball team and president pro-tem of his class.
Beasley was inducted with three other Beeville graduates — Ella Mae Taylor who broke the color barrier in 1956 by making the basketball team, Juan Cano who lettered in three sports in high school in the 1970s, and Juan Tijerina who was a football and track star in the late 80s.
“Being inducted with those three was a humbling experience,” Beasley said. “You don’t believe you are in the same category as they are.”
When Athletic Director Dr. Mark Cousins heard about Beasley’s award, he said he wasn’t surprised.
“I knew Darryl was an award-winning athlete in high school and college,” he said. “Darryl also is a great asset to UIL and he provides a great service to our student participants across Texas.”
Beasley said his favorite memory of playing high school basketball was when his team played West Oso High School for the district race. It was a time when only one team went to the playoffs.
“We played against Jerry Davis, an All-American who later played at the University of Detroit,” Beasley said. “West Oso starting line was big. They had several guys over 6 feet. We had one.”
The memory doesn’t have a fairy tale ending where the little guys prevailed. Beeville didn’t beat West Oso.
“We only lost by a point or two,” he said. “We came so close to beating them. We took them to the brink.”
The Beeville team played their hearts out, and that is what stuck with Beasley. A win is nice, but it’s the journey, the struggle that sticks, Beasley said.