Transcript:

Welcome to the sideline, where we sit down with West High coaches to talk all things sports.

I’m here with Coach Austin McBeth. So, first question: what is your go to pre-game song?

Oh man, I was not prepared for that being the first question. I actually don’t really listen to music before the game, so kind of just whatever is on the the pre-game track list in the gym. I’m not like a huge need to listen to music before the game. I’m usually locked in and thinking about other things, so I’m not a big music guy.

Do you have like a ritual before any game?

I don’t know that I necessarily have a ritual. I always like to get to the gym really, really early, and most coaches never like, They don’t come out of the locker room until the very end. They like walk into the gym right before the game starts. I’ve always thought, that’s weird. So, I’ll go out and sit during pregame and kind of watch both teams warm up and I’ll go and watch the girls game before and stuff like that. But I don’t know if that’s a ritual, but it’s definitely something that most people don’t do, and I just like doing it.

After playing football and basketball at Iowa State University, what inspired you to pursue coaching as a career?

So I always wanted to either play in the NFL or the NBA. That was kind of always the goal, like most people. And I realized when I was on the football team at Iowa State that I wasn’t good enough to play and then had a really cool opportunity to switch to the basketball team. So, then kind of all my focus was on making it to the NBA. And then I realized going into like my senior year, I’m like, there’s no shot that I’m going to be good enough to play in the NBA, so then my senior year was just kind of a what do I do next? Like what do I want to do? What am I interested in? And the only thing I’d ever planned on doing is playing professionally. So now I got to figure out what to do. And I actually had a, I wouldn’t call him a mentor, but somebody who played with my head coach that came in and talked to us about the opportunity of coaching and if anybody had considered it and I was like, I’ve never thought about coaching before in my life. And just something about JC coming in and talking that day in our practice, I was like: ‘maybe that’s something I’d like to do.’ After that, I just decided to pursue it. I had a few opportunities that kind of fell through the cracks and got a random job out in North Carolina at a small NAIA Christian school, and I was coaching out there for a year. The first week that I was there, I was literally living in a cabin in the woods and making like $5,000 for this job. And I call my mom like, ‘I don’t want to do anything else the rest of my life. I absolutely love this and I’ve never want to do anything else.’

Do you believe that coaching was probably your calling in life?

I do, and ironically, I went to a really small school in southeast Iowa, and my mom was a teacher. She told me way after the fact, because all I ever want to do is play, like I never thought about coaching. But when I got into coaching and told my mom I loved it, she was like, ‘you know, that they were like 2 or 3 teachers at Waco that said, when you were like in fourth grade that you were going to be a coach.’ And I’m like, ‘are you kidding me?’ They’re like, ‘yes, just the way that you did things and you would act on the court like everybody was telling me that you were going to be a coach. So I never told you that. But now that you’re doing it, I figured I’d let you know.’ So apparently, it was a no brainer for some people when I was really young, but I didn’t think about it until I was just about done with college.

Do you have any coaches that really impacted your life that maybe, like, helped you like be the way that you are today?

Yeah, when I so I played basketball and football at a junior college and my quarterback coach his name is James McNair. Shout out: sup man? if you ever hear this, I Really appreciate you. And he was I didn’t even spend a lot of time with him just the way that he interacted with me. Like I wanted to be just like him. He played semi-pro football. And just the way that he encouraged me, the positivity that he had with me, the way that he was always trying to help me get better, it was just, I didn’t grow up with my dad in the house so it was kind of like the first time, I was a freshman in college, and it was like the first father son type relationship that I kind of felt like I had. And I always wanted to be like him. And to this day, he typically texts me like once a month and just asks me how I’m doing. So I would definitely say he was one of the biggest impacts in my life of just like a coach that I remember. And then, fortunately enough, the head coach at Liberty University, his name is Richie McKay. He randomly reached out to me, 4 or 5 years ago. I still to this day, don’t know how he heard about me. I was an assistant coach at a Division two school, and he just hit me up and was like, ‘hey, I just wanted to encourage you to keep doing what you’re doing. I’m a coach at Liberty University,’ which ironically, is like my dream school to coach at. And so again, he’s just somebody that I kind of will occasionally reach out to and ask for advice. But those two are definitely some pivotal guys in my life.

That’s really amazing. So you’re from Iowa and you lived for in South Carolina for a bit. What made you come to or North Carolina in North Carolina? Okay. Sorry. What made you come to Kansas?

So I really want to be a head coach. I had been coaching ever since I graduated, thinking like 2014 was my first job and then kind of my timeline.

I bounced around a lot. I was in North Carolina for a year, moved back to Iowa for two years, moved to Illinois for two years, and then was an assistant coach at Truman State University in Missouri for three. And I was like, itching to be a head coach. I was only like 27 at this time, but it felt like I’d been coaching forever. I’m like, ‘I want to be a head coach so bad.’ So I was just applying to every single job that I could to try and get a job interview for a head coaching position, and it would have been in the year of, I think it was 2020. Maybe it was somewhere around Covid. The Friend’s University job became available like way before any other job because Dale Faber, who had been the coach there, announced his retirement in the middle of the year, which is a unique situation because typically all the jobs open up like around March. So that job came available and I saw it in like January or February. And one of my best friends from college lives here. I told Jen I was like, ‘I know that you’re going to think this is funny, but there’s a school called Friends Universe and it’s in Wichita, Kansas, and I think I want to apply.’ And she’s like, ‘well, if Mason lives there, like, you might as well give it a shot.’ – That’s my friend – And so I applied for the job, ended up getting it and that’s why me and my family moved down here. Was to be the head coach at Friends.

Okay. Going back to 2020, you published one of your books, Sweet 16, right? Was that your first one or was it your second one?

That was my second. It was my second book. My first book was, I think it was 2017. It was over like Christmas break, and I just, I randomly felt called by the Lord to just talk about basketball in a book. I’ve been so blessed and fortunate to play for some really, really good coaches, like

I was not talented enough to play at Iowa State. I still just think that it was the favor of the Lord. Me being allowed to be on that team. But I just learned so much in that season of life. And then I started coaching. I’m like, if there’s any way that I can just give back and help, I’d love to do it. So I had this idea to write a book about the way I see the game of basketball in 2017. It’s called The Gap Theory. And then that was just a weird deal, because I’m not really a writer, but I was like, I just feel like I’m supposed to. So I just tried to be, committed to being obedient to that and did it. And then again, kind of had another what I would say a, a pulling or a drawing from the Lord to write a book about something more impactful and more serious, in my opinion. And around 2020. So, I wrote a book called The Sweet 16 and basically the idea and the heart behind it is how coaches should love their athletes.

Wow. and I did look at it a lot. I’m very surprised and I’m very I didn’t really take you as a writer either.

So, most people don’t. If you asked any of my friends in high school or college, they wouldn’t believe I was either.

Were there any struggles or any hardships you had to go over any obstacles when sharing your insights and beliefs on and off the court, and adding your religious beliefs as well into the books?

I would say the hardest part about it was, as I was writing it, I knew that number one: I had never been a head coach. So it was hard for me to talk about something that I knew I hadn’t experienced. It’s kind of like people that write like the self-help books for, like, parents and you’re not parenting. You don’t know what it’s like until you do it, so I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome of ‘I’m talking about something that I haven’t fully experienced’ because it’s one thing to be an assistant coach, because you’re kind of like the big brother figure that nobody ever really gets mad at, because you don’t make all the decisions and you don’t have the heavy weight of telling people no and getting into conflict and things. So I knew that because I hadn’t been a head coach, I was talking about things that I probably didn’t fully understand. And I think the hardest part, though, was knowing that I’m imperfect, I make mistakes, I’m going to continue to screw up and be a bad coach, be a bad mentor, be a bad leader, and so how do I write about something that I believe is true, knowing that the person who’s penning it on paper is going to screw it up just like everybody else? So it really humbled me to know that when I produced it, I’m going to be bad at what I’m writing about, and then just hoping that through people reading the book and seeing me coach that there would be grace for people to know that we’re all imperfect. And that’s why Jesus came and that’s why salvation is so important. And I didn’t really ever struggle writing about my faith because it’s who I am. You don’t get Austin without me being a disciple of Christ. So that seemed easy. But just like knowing that I’m going to fall short in the same areas that I’m telling coaches to do things differently was just a humbling experience. To know that I’m going to screw up the same thing I’m encouraging other people to do.

You’re very inspirational. I just want to say that.

Appreciate it.

Thank you. All right. And this is your first time coaching high school basketball. So why West? Why now?

It’s a great question. I actually got fired from my job at Friends University. Some people know that. Some people don’t. It was after my second year. It was pretty abrupt. Like right near the end of the year, I was completely unaware that it was going to happen. It was one of those life altering moments in my life because I had been an assistant coach for literally a decade, working to be a head coach and then looking forward to running a program and doing all the things that I had dreamed about doing for a long time. And then it just kind of, was gone. I kind of felt like in the blink of an eye, like my dream had been taken away. And it was one of the hardest seasons that I’ve ever gone through. It’s one of the hardest seasons that my wife and I have ever gone through, and I didn’t want to just move and take another assistant job. I had already moved my wife around multiple times. We had two kids here in Wichita. We had a home. We loved our church family, and I was just like, ‘I don’t want to just make my family be at the beck and call of me chasing the next dream.’ I just really felt strongly that I needed to stay here, that I needed to trust God, that whatever he was going to do with my career and with coaching in my life, I was just going to basically surrender to him and say ‘whatever that looks Like, I just want to be used by you and whatever that looks like.’ And so I got to volunteer with Newman University last year because I knew Coach Allen. That was a great time. I learned a lot, just made some great connections. Shout out to my boys, over there. But when I was done with that year, I was kind of like, all right, I need a real job. Like, can I kind of provide for my family? So I started working at the YMCA. I took the job as the youth basketball director, and I was doing that for about three months and didn’t really enjoy it. But like, I’m a dad and I’m a husband and I got to take care of my family. So I was doing that. And then when Coach Womacks got the job, he called me and asked me if I wanted to be the head coach here. And I’ll be honest, like, my first reaction was, no, like, I’m a college basketball coach. I’m not going to coach high school. And it’s really cool. Now that we’re talking about my book, that one of the things that loves talks about, one of the things that first Corinthians 13 talks about, which is what the whole book is about, is that love is not prideful. So Womacks did a great job of being like, ‘don’t officially tell me no, just take some time to think about it.’ And I spent probably about a week just praying and trying to figure out, like, is this something that God wants me to do? And if it is, why am I so resistant to wanting to be the head coach when that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do? And the reality is, what it came down to is, that I was being prideful. I was like, ‘I played Division one sports. I’ve been a head coach at the college level. I’ve coached college basketball for ten years. I’m too good to be a high school coach.’ And in that short window of a week or whatever it was, I think God really just kind of put me in timeout and was like ‘dude, you’re so arrogant that you think that you get to determine how good you are, and what you get to do and what you want for your career when I’m the one who gave you the talent in the first place?’ And it just kind of knocked me down a peg. So I thought about it some more, talked to my wife about it, and I was like, let’s do it. And one of the cool things was talking to Womacks just about the need here at West for people like me. He did a phenomenal job of just being honest and transparent and open with me and I appreciated that a lot, especially coming off of an unfortunate situation with my last athletic director at friends that I just; I truly felt like he was very trustworthy and honest. It was one of those things where it was like a no, and it was a no, and it was a no. And then, like, I got punched in the mouth and kind of aware of how selfish I was being and arrogant and then it was like, dude, I’m all in. And it’s been challenging, just like Coach Womacks has said. Changing a culture is really hard. But I love the dudes on this team, and I’m really excited to be here and to coach and do what I love. And I’m just hoping that I can make, not just an impact, on the wins and losses category that people care about, but just in the hearts of these guys.

You do have a great drive, and I think that you’ll do an amazing job for in here and years, going for it here at West.

Thank you.

All right. And last question. So you’re really close to God. Is there a Bible verse that you live by from day to day?

People ask me that. And I don’t know if there’s one specific verse that that really I don’t know if there’s one verse that it’s like, this is what I cling to or like, this is kind of like my mantra. I mean, at the end of the day, I don’t know that there’s like a verse that can capture what I want to be about, but I think it’s more about just I want to not just be somebody that people like, but I want to I want to live a life that people see something different in me. By the way that I love people. To know that, like, it’s not because of me that I act like this, but it’s because of what Christ has done for me. I guess if I’m going to give you one, it’s probably Matthew 28:19 that says to go into all the world and make disciples. And that’s what we’re called to do. Like that is the Great Commission. It’s what this whole life is supposed to be about as a follower. So, for me, it’s not about championships. It’s not about winning basketball games. It’s not about whether people know who I am. it’s about helping people know how to follow Christ the way that we’ve been called and designed to do it. So that’s probably not my life motto or my verse, but that’s definitely what I feel called to do.

Okay, great. One last question. We’re putting all the NBA mascots in a room. Who’s winning a fight?

Oh man. All the NBA mascots? I don’t even know what his name is. But I’m going to go with the Chicago Bulls mascot.

Benny the Bull?

Yeah, Benny the bull. I, I was lucky enough to go see my favorite player, Steph Curry for the Warriors play in Chicago and I saw Benny and he literally was walking around just like squaring up with people. So I’ll definitely go with Benny.

All right. Great. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

This episode was produced by Liliana Gonzalez on behalf of the Pioneer Press at a West High School music Credit: On top By Grace McCoy. For more Pioneers news and updates, visit us at WHSword.com or on Instagram at WWPioneerPress.