There are five players on the Adams Eagles that score more than Joe Beard.
But there's no doubt who the team's leader is.
"Joe puts everybody else first," Eagles coach Milt Cooper said. "And you don't find that much. He is a true point guard."
"Sometimes my coach tells me I need to be a little more selfish," Beard said. "I'll be selfish when I need to be. But my team feeds off me. We play better when I'm unselfish."
Beard's unselfishness, and ability to make some downright pretty passes, are the biggest reason the Eagles are atop the NIC, unbeaten in conference play.
"I just do what's best for the team," he said.
A team that, a few years ago, he wasn't sure he'd ever play for again.
"Falling into a hole," he recalled, "it's hard to get yourself out."
Beard says his grades got so bad, he flunked off the team his freshman year.
"Coming in freshman year, you really think about just basketball," Beard said. "You get caught up in the whole high school scene or whatever. So after freshman year I fell behind on my grades, and then I started to realize how important GPA was to getting into college. So that's when I started picking it up."
Now, Beard's grades are as good as his passes. And he sees himself as an example to other kids who find themselves where he was.
"I think a lot of the younger kids look up to me," Beard said. "We had two freshmen this year that actually flunked off the team. Probably two of the best freshmen on the team. And after they flunked off, I gave them the speech about me flunking off. So I mean, you can also turn your career around."
