MIAA Hall of Fame

Sallie Beard
Coach/Athletic Director
Missouri Southern (1972-2009)

Beard served Missouri Southern as both a coach and Athletic Director for 37 years before her retirement last year. Beard almost single-handedly started up women's athletics at Missouri Southern when she became the first head coach of the sports of women's basketball, softball and tennis, and later coached track and field. She was the athletic department's Women's Athletic Director for 25 years before being named the first Athletic Director at MSSU in 2001 for both the men's and women's programs. Beard helped usher in a new era in MSSU Athletics when the department moved from the NAIA to NCAA Division II and the MIAA in 1989.

After being named the AD at Southern in 2001, Beard oversaw various enhancement projects at Southern, including the Lionpride Restoration Project, which added new turf and a new track surface at Fred G. Hughes Stadium, as well as the construction of the Leggett & Platt Athletic Center (a $7 million plus basketball and indoor track facility that also houses classrooms and offices). Missouri Southern consistently ranked among the best academically in the MIAA. Under Beard's leadership, Missouri Southern had a Academic Success Rate of 87 percent, which was 36 percent higher than the general student population at MSSU.

Always one to lead by example, Beard served on numerous NCAA and MIAA committees including the NCAA Division II Management Council, as well as the Degree-Completion, Convention Planning and Division II Identity Committees. She previously served on the Division II Nominating and Voting Committees, the Division II Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee, and the association-wide NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics, developing Title IX interpretive language for the Office of Civil Rights during the Clinton administration. Beard has also held a leading role in the MIAA, serving as the conference's president from 1999 until 2001, the first athletics director to be elected to that position. She filled the position after serving as vice president of the MIAA in the 1998-99 school year. During her stint as track & field coach, Beard was twice named NAIA District 16 Coach of the Year, including in 1983 when she led Southern to the district outdoor title. She also served as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team at the 1981 World University Games in Romania that included Edwin Moses, Carl Lewis and Jackie Joyner-Kersee. She was a coach for the North squad at the 1983 National Sports Festival in Colorado Springs, Colo. and was also on the games committees for the NAIA Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Championships from 1979-83.

She helped coordinate Missouri Southern's effort to host the Southwest Missouri Special Olympics each year and helped coordinate the MSSU SAAC effort handing out Christmas gifts at the Boys and Girls Club of Joplin. Beard served on the board of the Joplin Sports Authority and is an active member of the First Presbyterian Church and the Kiwanis, while volunteering on numerous occasions with the Red Cross.