Chris Beard details how his staff plans to continue building culture at Texas

Culture is important for Chris Beard. On the court, and even more so, off the court. Ahead of his second season at Texas, he’s making sure to keep the team as engaged with each other as possible in between practice time. They’re doing so by gallivanting across the city of Austin doing various activities, or sometimes, just sitting around playing Connect 4.

At a recent press conference, Beard was asked about how the team is building culture. To which he responded with a long description of everything the Longhorns have done this offseason to help build team chemistry and a competitive culture around the program. Here was his full answer:

“Our culture is important to us. First thing you got to do is build it. Then you got to defend it, execute it every day. So this summer, we had a lot of fun. We really did. And we don’t apologize for that. We have a process that we believe in. I don’t think anybody works harder than us in college basketball. It’s not arrogance, it’s just the truth. We don’t think we’re better than anybody else. But there’s some people out there that probably work as hard as us, but nobody works harder. And I think a part of that is also the idea of balance. To be at your best at whatever you’re striving to do. And certainly with our players is to be a student athlete.”

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

“To be your best at whatever your craft is…you also have to have some balance. We don’t apologize for that. And so, in our culture, we try to have more fun than anybody in college basketball. So, we’re always doing things. We enjoy being in Austin, Texas too. Whether it’s swimming in the lakes or rivers or getting outside in one of the beautiful parks, whether it’s going to see live music. Just all the things that this city brings to the table. Obviously, the restaurants, just everything about the city.

“We enjoy almost to a calculated point where each week we’re trying to do something in Austin, Texas. Every team kind of has a trend. Right now, the the pool table is pretty hot. Later on in the year, the ping pong table will get hot. Connect Four has made a huge comeback, you know. I didn’t even think that game existed anymore, but that’s made a comeback. Again, there’s a lot of things in our program that are going on. We celebrate birthdays around here with passion. But a lot of good things.”

Chris Beard is letting his team have their fun this offseason in the name of bringing the squad closer together. He finished by revealing a friendly competition the team is having between managers that has the whole squad excited.

“I think one specific thing is we currently have the battle for the title going on. We got two two student managers that are trying to be head manager on this year’s team and both of them are very worthy. Instead of flipping a coin on that, we believe in competition around here. Everything’s about competing in our culture. So those two guys are doing what we call The Battle for the Title. So it’s a best-of-seven. The other night we did swimming, we did a karaoke. I forget what else we’ve done. We do everything. A lot like the NBA — it normally goes to game seven, if that makes sense.”

Texas Basketball sounds like a hoot! Chris Beard and the guys are havin’ fun.