Let’s get this out of the way. Michael Beamen has a unique hairstyle. If you spend 30 seconds with him, you’ll know were it comes from and what it represents: confidence.
“I’m going to come out and I’m going to beat everybody,” Beamen says to people who would poke fun. In his eyes, he doesn’t have much to lose. “I’m already short. I’ve got the hair now. Let’s go.”
Some “old school” basketball fans will look at those quotes and roll their eyes at yet another young kid who thinks he’s all that. But that’s not the case with Beamen. He is all that for the Lighthouse Christian Chargers, and he’s lucky to have a coach who lets him be himself.
“He caught a little grief [for his hair] in some of the tournaments we’ve played in,” Chargers head coach Brent Davis says. He admitted he wasn’t sure if he should tell Beamen to cut his hair when he showed up to the first practice of the season, but figured it wasn’t hurting anyone and it helped him show the right kind of emotion during games. “Some opponents will say a thing or two but once he drops a three in their face they pretty much quit talking to him.”
He’s averaging 17.4 points per game for Lighthouse Christian to go along with 5.9 assists, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.9 steals. He leads the team in points and assists, and is top four in rebounds and steals.
“I know what the best pass is,” Beamen says. “I know my abilities and I know my teammates’ abilities. I kind of have a basketball mind and I know where the spots are and I know how to hit them.”
“Michael sees the floor in the way that a lot of high school players don’t,” Davis said. “I tell our big guys under the basket, ‘when he drives pay attention because the ball may magically appear in your hands.'”
Beamen is in just his second year with the Chargers after spending the first two years with a now-defunct Springfield Knights team. Beamen and Davis differ on what last season’s transition was like (Davis says it was okay, Beamen says it could have been smoother). This year Beamen says things feel more natural, which helps bring out that confidence, and lets his basketball IQ take over.
“I was born with [basketball instincts],” Beamen said. “I played in a rec league in Republic when I lived there when I was 10 or so. I could tell I was a little bit above, I guess you could say. It was something I was born with, and I’ve honed it ever since, and here I am.”
This is Michael’s last year with Lighthouse Christian, but it’s fitting that it will end with the best chance for him to show off that swagger that’s taken him this far as the Chargers play in this week’s National Christian HomeSchool Championships in Springfield.
“The name of the week, the name of the tournament, that’s going to be confidence,” he said.
Lucky for the Chargers, it’s also the name of Michael Beamen’s game. That’s why he’s the Arby’s High School Athlete of the Week
