Wooster Legacy Gets Passed Down to Volleyball's Beal

WOOSTER, Ohio – Lizzi Beal admits that sports didn't come easy to her when she was growing up as young girl, but her dad kept inviting her to the backyard to play anyway. She must have picked up a thing or two, because now Lizzi is dishing out assists at The College of Wooster like her dad did over 25 years ago – only in another sport.

Beal is in her sophomore season as a starting setter with the volleyball team, and has quickly built a reputation as one of the North Coast Athletic Conference's premiere players. Her outgoing personality and gutsy playing style has become her calling on the court, but without her dad's eagerness to help, her athletic potential may never have been realized.

"My dad was always trying to get me to go in the backyard and play," Beal recalls. "I would be watching television, and he'd come in the room asking me to shoot hoops or pitch to him. I never really thought I was athletic, but then my dad got me into a volleyball camp in seventh grade and I ended up being pretty good."

Lizzi would continue getting better, and as a junior she earned a spot on Greenwood High School's varsity team in her hometown Bowling Green, Ky. She began to embrace playing what the Lady Gators designated as its "middle-back" position, but her coach decided to make her the team's setter in her senior year. Although Beal initially wanted "nothing to do with setting the ball," she helped lead the team to a regional championship that year, and would graduate with the second-most career assists in school history.

"I never really wanted to set, but one day my coach was like 'go against the wall and practice setting'," explains Beal. "I really love it now, though. You're like the quarterback on the volleyball court. You have to think a lot, and be willing to block, attack, and pass – I'm involved in every single possession."

Another way people tend to describe the setter position is a lot like a point guard in basketball, or in Lizzi's case, a lot like what her dad did while he was a student-athlete at Wooster in the early 1980s. For three years, Ron Beal played on the men's basketball team, primarily as a point guard, and he instantly earned a reputation as a great outside shooter and an even better passer.

Then-head coach Al Van Wie thrust him into a starting point guard role as a sophomore, and his play quickly belied his experience, as he led the 1981-82 squad in assists (3.4 apg) while chipping in over nine points per game that season. Ron would play the next two years, and ended his career with exactly 200 assists and over 600 points scored, something Lizzi has now learned to appreciate.

"When I was little I used to tell people my dad was in the NBA," said a laughing Beal. "I really had no idea what he had done. But once I got older I realized he was a really good college player, and I really look up to him. We are both very generous and team oriented people, I think that's why we both play positions that pass the ball. We want to push the spotlight onto other people."

Even though Lizzi is averaging more than nine assists per game over her career, she hasn't been able to shed the attention that is involved in being a star athlete. Last season as a first-year player, she was voted the NCAC's top newcomer following a campaign in which she amassed a staggering 1,095 assists – the fifth-highest total in school history. This year, she is actually averaging more assists per match, which is remarkable considering this is only her third season playing the position dating back to high school.

Lizzi says several coaches and parents who have seen or played with her dad have approached her and said her attitude and passion on the court is just like Ron's. While she loves those comparisons now, a couple years ago it didn't seem like continuing the Wooster legacy was something Lizzi was going to take on.

"I didn't want to go to Wooster because I didn't want to do exactly what my dad did," said Beal. "But once I visited it here, I realized how much I love it. It has actually made my dad and I so much closer because now we have things to talk and reminisce about."

With the volleyball team playing well and another all-NCAC selection possibly looming, Lizzi may be on the way towards surpassing her dad's prominence in Wooster sport's history. But even that wouldn't make her forget all the years she spent in the backyard trying to catch up.