Chris Beard opens up on time between Texas, Ole Miss jobs

After having to leave Texas roughly a year after he arrived there, Chris Beard has now taken the job at Ole Miss. The coaching carousel moves quickly in the college hoops world, but Beard was able to get a few months off in between coaching gigs to step back and spend time with family while still watching plenty of basketball. Now that he’s back as a power conference head coach, he’s doing the media rounds, which included an interview with Jon Rothstein on the College Hoops Today Podcast.

On the show, Rothstein asked about that time off and how Beard used it. The new Rebel coach had this to say about his little break:

“That time brought a lot of things. Firstly, basketball-wise, I think one thing that I enjoy during that time, that I haven’t had a chance to do in my career, is to follow some of our teams that we root for. You know, we have several assistant coaches that are head coaches at different levels. But to be able to watch, you know, Abeline Christian, UTEP, Auburn, of course Rodney (Terry) did a good job with the Texas team. So I was able to just follow a lot of teams, a lot of former assistant coaches, which I haven’t really been able to do over the years. So that was pretty cool.

He also said time with family was important: “Then, obviously some time with my daughters and family was special to me. I did a lot of things during those months off that I’ve never had a chance to do before.”

Rothstein then asked how Beard handled having to remain on the sidelines for an entire season of hoops while not coaching a team for the first time in decades. He responded:

“Again, I kind of felt like I had a team, just wasn’t able to coach them on a day to day basis. But certainly was following the teams and assistant coaches, their teams over the years, so that was kind of fun. I think, you know, like everybody who finds themself in a transition, that’s kind of the common call you get from all your coaches and your peers, is…hey, enjoy this time, you’re going to be back at it before you know it.

“I think I did an okay job of that. You get extra free time you normally wouldn’t have, so I’m trying to balance that, do some things I haven’t been able to do over the years. But above all, you know, it was still basketball. I watched the tournament all March, another special year. So, a little bit of time off.”

Chris Beard enjoyed his time off for what it allowed him to do, but he seems hungry to dive right back into coaching some ball.