Central Michigan University Athletics
Mainstay Beamish Steps to the Forefront
8/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. â€" Nick Beamish knew he had a lot of football left in him.
Trouble was, he was getting the impression that college coaches didn't feel the same way.
As a senior at Riverview High School in suburban Detroit, he was ranked among the top 50 players in the state by both the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, and was an all-conference selection on both sides of the ball.
But as his senior year of football came to an end in 2010, college coaches stopped calling, and there were no scholarship offers on the table.
"I was kind of undersized," says Beamish, who carried about 250 pounds on his 6-foot-3 frame back then. "I was playing offensive line at a school where we didn't win a lot of games. We didn't get a lot attention from winning, we didn't have a lot of players that were going anywhere."
He credits his coach at Riverview, Jeff Stergalas, for believing in him and going to bat for him.
"He was the one reaching out to schools saying, ‘I'm telling you, we have a player here, look at him,'" Beamish says. "I guess Central was the only one who listened."
An offer from the Chippewas finally came Beamish's way around Christmastime â€" way late in the recruiting game -- of his senior year of high school.
The kid who nobody outside of Mount Pleasant wanted has become, as he enters his senior year, the foundation of the Chippewa offensive line. Now tipping the scales at 310, Beamish has started every game since his freshman season, when he was named the CMU Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Last season, he earned First Team All-Mid American Conference honors, and he is on the Rimington Trophy Fall Watch List for the second consecutive season.
"I'm not surprised by it," says Stergalas, who spent 37 years as a high school football coach and is now the athletic director at Riverview. "He's just a fantastic kid and he's got that drive, he's got that intangible, that special part of him. Nothing that he does surprises me.
"I had no doubt this kid could play. He's a very good student, a hard worker. Some athletes have a sense of entitlement. Nick has never been that way. He's been appreciative of everything that Central Michigan has given him."
Beamish became a sponge on an outstanding offensive line during his freshman season, lining up with the likes of tackle Eric Fisher, who would go on to become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, and guards Darren Keyton and Andy Phillips. Keyton is now with the Detroit Lions, Phillips with the Green Bay Packers.
Ironically, it was an injury to Phillips that helped open the door early on for Beamish. In spring practice before the 2012 season, Beamish centered the starting line as Phillips, who had started there in the final five games of 2011, sat out with an injury. By the time Phillips returned for the 2012 season, Beamish was entrenched and Phillips moved over to guard.
"Winning the job and keeping it was intense coming in, but that was amped up even more because I had seniors all around me," Beamish said. "They weren't going to take any mess ups. They weren't going to take a player who wasn't going to produce."
The center, no matter how young or inexperienced, makes the calls on the line to adjust the blocking assignments. Beamish the neophyte leaned on the veterans.
"I learned the most from (Phillips) because we did start every game next to each other," Beamish said. "He's just an incredibly smart player.
"Keyton was my right guard (my) freshmen year and he was making most of the calls. He was helping me look at the defense and I figured it out on the fly. Fish, more or less, I was terrified of, I was terrified to screw up because I could feel his fist coming across the huddle if I had a bad play. Living up to those standards was tough, but finally I got it."
And now Beamish is the standard-setter and the leader.
First-year offensive line coach Derek Frazier knows a man who is cut out for the job when he sees him.
"A leader's a guy who is going to say what needs to be said when it needs to be said, and it's not about hurting people's feelings or trying to skate around the subject," Frazier said. "A leader has to be the guy that says ‘Hey, I'm going to be demanding of what the level of expectation is for this position and we're going to hold people to that.'
"Nick does a great job of putting out there what the expectation of that offensive line is and what it takes as far as working out, studying film, the level of intensity during practice. And he's going to hold people to a high standard."
Beamish, who carries a 3.38 grade point average, is cut from the mold, Frazier said, of the prototypical center.
"Well first he has to be a conceptual thinker and smart -- centers do a lot," he said. "They have to be tough and athletic and when you come down to it, you're battling a guy who's 6 inches from your face and you have to put your hands between your legs (to snap the ball) while you're doing it.
"You have a guy who has some athleticism and some gritty toughness. It's not always pretty in there. It's a dirty, tough, hard-nose position. You need someone who has that type personality and loves that physical aspect of the game and Nick embodies that."
Beamish also embraces the history and tradition of CMU offensive linemen.
"The tradition in that room is unlike anywhere else," Frazier said. "The people that have come out of that room and gone on and played. We're in charge of keeping up that tradition. A guy like Nick knows and understands what it takes to compete at the highest level."
