Missouri Southern Athletics Director and Division II Management Council member Sallie Beard has announced she will retire in July.

Beard, in her 37th year at her alma mater, is in her seventh as Missouri Southern’s athletics director. She directed the school’s women’s athletics program for the 25 years before that. 

“The memories and highlights of the past 37 years are far too numerous to even list,” Beard said. “I have had the privilege to work with an outstanding group of coaches, student-athletes, staff and administrators. I have had the chance to see young people grow from student-athletes to a wide-range of professional fields. I have even worked with sons or daughters of those that I coached. Missouri Southern has been a part of my life for a long time and will continue to be for many years to come.”

Besides her service on the Division II Management Council, Beard currently is a member of the Degree-Completion and Convention Planning Committees and the Division II Identity Subcommittee. She has previously served on the Division II Nominating and Voting Committees, the Division II Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee, and the Committee on Women’s Athletics. Beard has also held a leading role in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, serving as the conference’s president from 1999 until 2001. She filled the position after serving as vice president of the MIAA in the 1998-99 school year.

In addition to her administrative positions at Missouri Southern, Beard also served as the first head coach of the women’s basketball, softball, track and field, and tennis teams. Beard currently oversees a department that offers eight women’s and seven men’s sports.

Her coaching tenure includes having served as an assistant coach for the U.S. Olympic team at the 1981 World University Games in Romania. That team included Edwin Moses, Carl Lewis and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

“She is the reason I came here in 1981 and perhaps why I am still here today,” said Pat Lipira, chair of the department of kinesiology and former softball and volleyball coach at Missouri Southern. “Our relationship has evolved over the years from being one of her coaches for 19 years to working alongside her as an administrator for the last nine. The one constant over the 29 years is our friendship and that will not change with her retirement.”

Missouri Southern women’s track and field and cross country coach Patty Vavra has had the unique opportunity of being a student, athlete and now a coach of Beard’s.

“Sallie Beard has devoted a lifetime to Missouri Southern,” Vavra said. “She has impacted a generation of students, athletes and coaches. She has almost single-handedly paved the way for women’s athletics at Southern. She has done that with the utmost respect. For all of this, we owe to her the deepest debt of gratitude.”

Beard earned her bachelor’s degree in physical education from Missouri Southern in 1972. She was hired as an instructor in the school’s physical education department in August of that year. After earning a master’s degree in physical education from Pittsburg State in 1973, Beard was called upon by several students in 1974 to organize Missouri Southern’s first women’s basketball, softball and tennis teams. She coached all three sports until 1976, when she relinquished her softball duties to become women’s athletics director and head coach of the first women’s track and field team. She later stepped down as basketball coach in 1977 and as tennis coach in 1978.

“I can't imagine having a more exciting, challenging, and fulfilling career than what I’ve had at Missouri Southern,” Beard said. “One of the most rewarding aspects of the job has been to watch young people flourish and expand their education beyond the classroom through athletics. The strength of this department has always been our student-athletes and coaches, and they will continue to be the strength of Missouri Southern Athletics.”

– Courtesy of Missouri Southern athletics