Author Spotlight
Christian Gooley
A quick turnover and a timeout during the Jan. 5 varsity game against Shawnee Mission North set junior Will Beck up for a play he’d only run once at practice.
Standing on the right side of the court, Will catches and quickly passes the basketball. He takes off, jumping off one foot, catches the basketball mid-air and throws it into the hoop. Parents, not just the student section, were on their feet screaming as the Pep Execs started a “Will Beck” chant.
Thanks to offseason practice, Beck surged to become a top varsity-scorer after playing sophomore team last year.
“I could not have been more excited with how I played and that our team won,” Will said. “I felt as if my hard work was paying off and that I can continue to play at a high level.”
He was MVP of the North game, scoring a career-high of 27 points. Watching her son celebrate with teammates after each basket, his mom Shannon Beck couldn’t have been prouder of her son.
“If you don’t know Will very well, he’s very quiet and humble,” Shannon said. “I think he believed in himself the last few years but never showed it, so to see him have success on the court and believe in himself is what I’m most proud of.”
Will hasn’t always had it easy playing basketball. He made the B team his freshman year and unlike most of his teammates — some of which he’d played with for years — Will wasn’t moved up to JV last year due to a lack of confidence in his game. Still, he worked to improve his shooting, dribbling and his finish around the rim despite not making the more advanced team.
“At the start of sophomore year, he was a little bit timid or didn’t have a whole lot of self-confidence,” Sophomore Head Coach Kevin Wiesner said. “Throughout the season, he just got better and better and better. Toward the end of the season, he was close to averaging a double-double. He just worked hard, you could see the confidence start to build.”
The sophomore team went 19-1 with their only loss coming in the final game of the season, so Will was confident going into the offseason.
Realizing that his goal of making JV/Varsity was within reach, Beck dedicated himself to basketball. He started putting the hours of work alone, taking hundreds of shots at Sylvester Powell Jr. Community Center daily and two hour practices with a private coach. All work that would finally pay off in the few tournaments East is involved in the summers.
“Just playing a lot, working on shooting details and dribbling details,” Beck said. “Sometimes having to miss going to the lake or hanging out with my friends to go practice was hard, but to me, it was worth it.”
Going into the annual summer Kamo basketball tournament through East, Will was just another guy on the team hoping to just get playing time. The outcome was shocking for most and foreshadowed the impact he’d make for the Varsity team.
“We saw a bunch of him this summer, we saw him really blossom into a great player,” Varsity Head Coach Shawn Hair said. “He played very well [in the Kamo tournament this summer] and that was a huge part of his success this season.”
Continuing to work hard and spend time in the gym practicing throughout the rest of the offseason, Will’s confidence continued to grow up to the team’s tryouts in November. After a week of brutal full court sprints and hours of competition with scrimmages and drills, Will accomplished his goal of seeing his name on the JV/Varsity roster.
“It’s a very rare instance to go from a starter on the sophomore team to a starter on the varsity team, big props to Will Beck for that,” Hair said.
Will, now the second-leading scorer during the team’s 7-1 start to the season, has become comfortable finding his role on the team and creating bonds spending hours with his teammates like senior Teddy Saylor.
“He worked really hard, he cares a lot about basketball and his hard work paid off,” Teddy said. “Someone who truly loves the game is super competitive and a great teammate.”
Leave a Reply