Anthony Beane is a Raider once again.
Beane was recently announced as the new assistant men’s basketball coach for Three Rivers, replacing Bryan Sherrer.
“This is where it basically all started for me,” Beane said. “When I took the job, I really started getting excited and focused. This place would be a really, really good thing in a lot of different ways.”
A Bernie alum, Beane played for the 1992 Three Rivers national championship team, scoring the go-ahead shot in the championship game. He also played one season with current head coach Brian Bess.
“Kind of a legendary figure for Three Rivers basketball,” Bess said, adding that five people were intervied for the position. “We had some good candidates. I would call it a strong field.”
Beane’s hiring continues a trend dating back to 1998 of hiring former Three Rivers players as assistant coaches, including Sherrer, Jordan McGowan, Will Durden and Dominic Okon.
Beane played for Kansas State after Three Rivers and then professionally in Europe until 1995.
His coaching career started in the summer of 1995 as an assistant at Allen County Community College, followed by a year at MSU-West Plains.
He then spent three years as an assistant at Southeast Missouri State, two at Illinois State and four at Saint Louis before accepting his first head coaching job with Soldan International High School in August 2006.
After one season, Beane returned to Illinois State as its top assistant coach, a position he also held from 2000-02, and stayed there until May 2012 when he became the top assistant at Southern Illinois for seven years.
In 2019, Beane took a job as an assistant at Northern Illinois, but head coach Mark Montgomery was fired in January after the team started 1-7.
“It was a tough season for us. But, it gave me a chance throughout the remainder of that season to reflect on a lot of things,” Beane said.
With more than 20 years of coaching experience at the Division I level, he interviewed for other Division I jobs, but wanted to go to a school where he felt a sense of purpose and passion.
“I did kind of want those jobs, but I didn’t have that passion. It didn’t seem like it was the right thing,” he said.
One day he got a text from Bess saying that Sherrer was leaving. Beane felt the Three Rivers job might give him the purpose he was looking for, but still, he hesitated.
His contacts include coaches at the highest levels of college basketball. Beane listed Oregon head coach Dana Altman and Southern Methodist head coach Tim Jankovich as references on his resume. After 23 years at the Division I level, does he really want to return to junior college and have the same job title he had in 1997?
But Three Rivers wasn’t just another coaching job.
“As time went on and the process started developing, I was thinking about it more, and the way the other things played out with the Division I jobs, all that stuff, the Good Lord was pointing me in this direction,” Beane said. “I’ve been getting a lot of texts from people who still live around here. I don’t even know how they got my number ... and they were all ‘Hey, welcome back.’”
While Three Rivers always has been a place that preached discipline, accountability and values. Beane has added a layer of specificity and experience to what the coaches are trying to teach.
For example, among the first questions a Division I recruiter will ask is, does he go to class?
“They’re not going to allow you to miss class, and they don’t want you if you’re known as a guy who doesn’t go to his classes,” Bess said.
Beane is still in the process of getting settled in. He’s commuting from Sikeston while looking for a home in Poplar Bluff. Before moving back, he wasn’t aware Poplar Bluff got a new high school, and the last time he saw the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, he was probably playing in it.
“The response (from the community) has been overwhelming,” Beane said. “I’m excited.
Scott Borkgren - Daily American Republic