Chris Beard studying Tom Brady to help guide Ole Miss program

Going into his third season as the head coach at Ole Miss, head coach Chris Beard is looking for a way to get his team to take another leap forward. To do that, he’s turned to legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady.

Beard doesn’t know Brady personally and the legendary quarterback has very little connection to basketball in general. Still, as Beard recently explained, there’s still plenty about his mindset that Ole Miss can help guide their program.

“I don’t think I’ve met Tom Brady,” Chris Beard said. “I might have shook his hand at some event, but I’ve never met him in terms of a quality conversation or anything. One thing I’ve always done is each offseason I’ll try to study winning. It doesn’t always have to happen in the form of basketball. It doesn’t always have to be athletic-minded, but just try to study successful people and try to learn what makes them tick.”

Tom Brady was, famously, the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL Draft. Often overlooked, he’d be elevated to starting quarterback for the New England Patriots in early 2001 when Drew Bledsoe was injured. The rest, as they say, is history. He’d never give the starting job back, winning six Super Bowls with the Patriots, one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and is now widely considered the greatest quarterback of all time. That wouldn’t have been possible without his mindset, which Beard has been looking into this offseason.

“With Brady, what he did in football kind of speaks for himself. In retirement this past year or so he’s pretty vocal and does an interview from time to time. Always really interested in the guy that will really talk and not all the fluff. That’s one of the cool things about today’s world,” Beard said. “All these podcasts and stuff, it seems like these winners and elite people will talk more free than they used to back in the day… So, you were just starved for information on these people, but now it’s like people just talk on a daily basis. So, I think the access to information, then you kind of weed it out. You can tell that’s kind of fluffy. That’s who he is. If you listen to a guy long enough and you study him or her, you can kind of understand what makes them tick.”

When it comes to Brady, what makes him tick has largely been his competitive drive. That’s something that can be helpful in different sports, including basketball.

“With Brady, it’s like the ultimate chip-on-your-shoulder guy. Wasn’t supposed to play in college, ends up being the best player. Wasn’t supposed to be a draft pick, ends up being the best player. All of his teams won,” Beard said. “I think his relationship with his teammates, coaches, owners, the whole deal. So, I really enjoyed trying to learn as much as I could about him.”

The hope for Chris Beard, now, is that Ole Miss can take on some of that mentality. If they can bring those things to the basketball program, then as a whole they should be improved moving forward.

“Ultimately, I get it down to the CliffsNotes version and try to get that information to the players. I don’t expect Gusto to spend all the time that I spend on those projects. But if I can get him the bottom line and five minutes of information that it took me four months to gather,” Beard said. “I always thought that’s kind of one of my responsibilities as a coach is to continue to help these guys. Educate them. So, yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time this offseason, spring, looking at Tom Brady.”