By Will Vandervort.
It had been just a few weeks since Vic Beasley announced his intentions to return to Clemson for his senior year. He was back in school and life was moving along quite nicely when suddenly everything stopped.
While shooting basketball with a couple of his friends on Feb. 1, 2014, Clemson’s All-American defensive end received a phone call he never could have imagined. His older brother, Tyrone Barrett, had suddenly passed away when he lost his life from injuries suffered in a car accident. He was 40-years old.
“It was very shocking. It came out of nowhere,” Beasley said on Thursday night after receiving his award as the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame’s Player of the Year for 2014. “My brother had called me and that’s when I realized (Tyrone) had passed away in a car wreck.
“It was kind of a sad moment. It was a sad couple of weeks.”
It was a period of time when Clemson’s defensive end coach, Marion Hobby, was really concerned about Beasley’s mental state. He had just gone through all the details and conversations that led to him staying at Clemson for another year. In the process he missed three weeks of classes and now he learns his oldest brother died.
“I was wondering, ‘Vic, How are you going to pass these classes? Who is going to pull the old withdrawal thing,” Hobby recalled while speaking to the audience at the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame. “Vic said, ‘No. I haven’t missed but three weeks.’ I said, ‘Three weeks, Vic! Three weeks! You are taking stats, 400-level classes. Three weeks!’ I said, ‘You know you can’t fail stats, right?’ He said, ‘Fail it?!’ I said, ‘What are you going to make?’ He said, ‘I’m probably going to make a ‘B.’ I said, ‘What!? Three weeks, make a ‘B’?’ He said, ‘Oh yeah! Don’t worry about it. I’m going to make the Dean’s List this time.’
Beasley finished the semester with a 3.5 GPA.
“You are talking about a guy that has to earn your respect, he earned my respect,” Hobby said.
Beasley earned everyone’s respect. He went on to not only have another All-American season on the gridiron, which earned him ACC Defensive Player of the Year honors, but he also graduated, fulfilling his ultimate goal.
And he did it all while thinking and remembering his brother, Tyrone.
“We were real close. It was kind of a devastating time in my life,” Beasley said. “But, I think it brought our family closer together. It kind of took us to another level as a family.”
Thanks to the help of his family, while also leaning on his faith, Beasley plowed ahead, got caught up on his school work and took his play on the football field to another level.
“(Tyrone died) maybe fifteen days after I decided to comeback,” Beasley said. “It was kind of devastating because I kind of had big plans for my brother and things, but God worked in different ways.”
It’s strange these days for Beasley to think his brother isn’t here to share in all of his successes, but he continues to move forward.
Beasley finished the 2014 season with 21.5 tackles for loss, including 12 sacks. Along the way, he graduated, shattered the Tigers’ all-time sack record, while being one of the unquestionable leaders on a defense that led the nation in total yards and in 10 more defensive categories.
He followed that up with his second straight consensus All-American selection and then a performance for the ages at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, which was a few weeks after the one-year anniversary of Tyrone’s death.
Now here he is, 13 days before his life changes forever. The NFL Draft, which will be on April 30, is on the horizon, and a moment—that seemed as if it was light years away because of all the heartache and suffering—is almost here.
Beasley is projected to go anywhere from No. 3 to No. 15 overall in the upcoming draft.
“I’m mostly happy about getting my degree,” Beasley said. “That is really all I came back to do. But I was able to come back and improve my game as a player, too. I’m definitely happy about being here and receiving this award.
“I think my hard work has paid off.”
And Tyrone would have been proud.