After nearly half of century of coaching basketball, Southwestern Assemblies of God University (SAGU) women’s basketball coach Arlon Beadles has announced the 2014-2015 season will be his last at SAGU.
Beadles is quick to point out that he prefers to call it relocating rather than retiring, “I have no plans to retire on life! I will only relocate and continue to serve God in whatever ways he chooses to use me.”
beadles with teamThe 2014-2015 season will be Beadles last at SAGU Coach Beadles has amassed a long and successful career since graduating from Southern Nazarene University in 1964. His first job was coaching boys’ basketball at Southwestern High School in Oklahoma City making only $2,800 a year. He taught and coached at Southwestern High School for 16 years before taking on a new and entirely different adventure all together, coaching women at Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Georgia.
Beadles says he loves the competitive nature of men, “If they get beat it really bothers them for days. It really sticks in their craw. Women get over it really quick.” Beadles also recognized the difference in how men and women treat coaches. “Most of the time women treat you really nice compared to men. They’re real sensitive about how you feel and when it’s your birthday. Men, they don’t give a rip. It’s been fun to coach both of them.”
After coaching stops at Southwestern High School, Oklahoma City Southwestern Junior College, Midwest City High School, Emmanuel College, Jimmy Swaggart Bible College and Yale High School, Beadles and his wife Mary arrived at SAGU in 2005. Inheriting a women’s program that struggled with wins on the court and retention within the program was a daunting task. Under Beadles guidance the women’s basketball program at SAGU has experienced competitive growth and stability. The women’s basketball program wasn’t doing well since switching to the NAIA. They were averaging only a handful of wins a season. Beadles has enjoyed watching the program grow, “We didn’t have a lot of scholarship money but God blessed us. There was a period when we only had 7 or 8 girls, but we won 22 or 23 games a year. We played in two national tournaments. That really changed it around. That’s been a joy of mine, to see us become really competitive.”Head Coach Beadles
Athletic Director Jesse Godding echoes those thoughts in regard to Beadles. “Coach Beadles had done a tremendous job of creating a complete women’s basketball program for SAGU. As a coach, he came to SAGU with blueprint for making the program competitive on the court and has doggedly pursued that plan. He has been an example to the women he has coached of a Godly man and consistently showed them that life is bigger than basketball through missions trips and outreaches. The next coach of women’s basketball at SAGU will inherit a solid, competitive program thanks to Coach Beadles efforts.”
The highlight of Beadles’ career at SAGU would have to be a win over NCAA Division 1 Texas State University. “That was a great win for us,” says Beadles, “We played at noon down there, and they had brought in all these fourth and fifth graders, like 4,000 kids, and the noise was just unbelievable. We upset them in overtime 68-66.” Beadles is the only current SAGU coach to own a win over an NCAA Division I opponent.
At the end of the school year Coach Beadles and his wife will move back to Georgia to be near their 3 adult children and 9 grandchildren. It will be a change of pace for Beadles, but one he is ready to embrace with open arms. Although coaching professionally doesn’t seem to be in the plans for Beadles, he did say he would be willing to coach a grandchild if they were to ask.
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