Father McGivney’s 69-44 loss to Shelbyville on Tuesday in the first round of pool play at the Vandalia Holiday Tournament didn’t turn out the way FMCHS coach Rich Beyers wanted, but the game still had special meaning for him.
The 6-foot-8 Beyers, a 1997 Shelbyville graduate, was the Class A player of the year during his junior season in 1995-96, averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds as the Rams won beat Mid-States Conference rival Breese Mater Dei 58-45 to win the state championship.
The game marked the first time since 1955 that pair of league opponents met in the title game.
Beyers earned Class A first-team all-state honors during his junior and senior years. His 1,980 careers points rank second in program history behind 1962 graduate Larry Hinton, who had 2,076. Hinton went on to play four years at the University of Illinois.
Beyers, meanwhile, played one-and-a-half seasons at Illinois and two seasons at Illinois State University. But his collegiate career was built on his success at Shelbyville, which improved to 9-1 this season with Tuesday’s win over Father McGivney.
Last season, Shelbyville beat the Griffins 69-36 in pool play ay Vandalia.
“My old assistant coach (Bob Herdes) is now the head coach there, so there are still a lot of good relationships and familiar faces,” Beyers said. “It is fun to play against them because there is somewhat of a comfort level for me as a coach.”
At Shelbyville, Beyers played under head coach Sean Taylor, who had a 113-38 record with the Rams in five seasons from 1994-95 to 1998-99.
Taylor, who was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2012, is in his second year at Moline High School after two years at Jacksonville. Taylor has a 524-242 record over 28 seasons at seven high schools, including 11 seasons at Quincy.
“It was probably the most fun I ever had playing the game,” Beyers said. “We worked extremely hard and we had a lot of guys that were committed to being there all the time. When you play with the same guys since grade school, you develop a bond that’s hard to duplicate.
“Coach Taylor was a joy to play for. There are definitely some things that we did in high school that I’ve put in with our guys. There are drills that we do in practice that are similar to what we did at Shelbyville.”
During Beyers’ sophomore season in 1994-95, Shelbyville reached the Class A state tournament during its final year at Assembly Hall in Champaign and lost to Rock Island in the Elite Eight.
The Rams’ state title in 1995-96 came after the tournament had moved to Carver Arena in Peoria.
“We were the first state champions in Peoria, so that was pretty special,” Beyers said.
After a lean stretch in which it had only three winning seasons in 16 years, Shelbyville was 15-12 last season during Herdes’ first year as head coach. For Beyers, it’s gratifying to see his alma mater experience some success again.
“It’s a small town and a very tight-knit community and that helps a lot when you’re playing any kind of sport,” Beyers said. “You want to feel like the guy next to you is your brother. When you care about people that much, it makes your team play really well together, and you get the results that they’re getting this year.
“It’s exciting for them. I wish them all the success and a great season and I look forward to keeping track of them.”
Beyers came back to Champaign as the first recruit by new Illinois coach Lon Kruger. He played 21 games for the Illini as a freshman in 1997-98, scoring 14 points in 21 games.
After averaging 3.9 points in his first 11 games as a sophomore in 1998-99, Beyers transferred to Illinois State midway through the season.
After redshirting at ISU, Beyers returned to action during the 1999-2000 season and averaged 5.8 points and 4.4 rebounds. He wrapped up his collegiate career during the 2000-01 season, averaging 5.6 points and 3.1 rebounds.
Beyers played for three head coaches during his collegiate career, although he never played in an actual game under Collinsville native Kevin Stallings, who left for Vanderbilt after the 1998-99 season at Illinois State. Tom Richardson took over for Stallings and coached Beyers for the next two seasons.
“Dan Muller is now the head coach at ISU and he and I have a really good relationship,” Beyers said. “He was on Kevin Stallings’ staff at Vanderbilt and he was around whenever I was playing up there. He came home over the summer and worked out with us because he was still trying to make an NBA team.
“Coach Muller sends me stuff all the time. I’m incorporating a lot of things from a lot of different people.”
Improvement is coming slowly for Father McGivney, which was 2-26 in its first varsity season in 2016-17.
The Griffins were 5-11 entering Thursday’s game.
“We’ve definitely got to get stronger, but hopefully the boys are learning something,” Beyers said. “We have our moments where we play pretty well, but we have too many moments where we let down.”