Chris Beard remembers a project in seventh grade when he had to write about what he wanted to be.
Except Beard didn’t choose basketball.
“I said I wanted to be a baseball coach at the time,” Beard said. “As a kid growing up, my favorite sport was whatever season it was. Thinking back, that assignment was probably in the month of May, and that’s why I said baseball coach.”
His love for basketball started a few years later in high school.
The location — in his driveway playing pick-up games with “NBA superstars.”
“I played a lot of imaginary games by myself in the driveway with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson,” Beard said.