Beacom Honored For 25 Years Of Coaching In Nebraska

Neligh-Oakdale’s Ron Beacom has spent many years mentoring young athletes and last week, he was honored for those many years.

At the Nebraska Coaches Association’s annual multi-sports clinic, Beacom was one of 14 coaches honored for their 25 years of coaching. He was presented with a plaque commemorating his time.

Beacom started coaching 25 years ago at Creighton. He spent two years there before moving on to Superior for another two years. From there, he took the job as the coach for Fremont Bergan, a position he stayed with for 18 years before taking Neligh-Oakdale’s head coaching job. 

In the beginning, coaching was a way for Beacom to stay competitive and involved in the sports world. After a while, he realized the impact he was having on kids is what kept him involved in sports. 

“That’s probably what kept me in it,” he explained. “Having a kid come back and say ‘Coach, I can’t thank you enough.’”

Beacom learned early in his career that, in order to be successful, he needed a strong support staff. He explained that he was fortunate enough to have people that were willing to take a chance in hiring him and kept him going in the right direction when he was still learning. He also credited his many assistant coaches for his success both on the field and off.

“I’ve been really fortunate to have incredible assistants everywhere I went,” Beacom said.

A self proclaimed “clinic junkie,” Beacom also realized early that he needed to be ready to learn as the game evolved. 

“There’s not a lot of secrets out there,” he said.

Constantly working on his professional development has been necessary for him because of the changes that have come to sports off the field as well. Since he began coaching 25 years ago, the number of clinics and safety trainings he is required to go to has improved drastically.

“When I first started, every head coach in the state of Nebraska had to attend a rules meeting,” Beacom explained. “Now we not only attend that rules meeting, we’ll do concussion training online. I do a sudden cardiac arrest training online and I do a heat acclimation meeting online every year.”

In his 25 years of coaching at four different high schools, Beacom has learned many things and his desire to continue learning may keep him on the sidelines for 25 more years if Neligh-Oakdale is lucky.

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