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Beeten leaves Clark for coaching post in California

Chad Beeten loved coaching basketball at Clark High. But he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to leave behind the real estate world and work on basketball full time.

Beeten, who led the Chargers to the past three Division I-A state basketball titles, is the new coach at Crossroads High in Santa Monica, California.

“It was an extremely difficult decision,” Beeten said. “Had all things been equal, I probably would have stayed at Clark.”

Beeten said he will be on campus full time at Crossroads. In Las Vegas, he had a real estate business to make ends meet.

“I used to coach basketball for a living, and it’s just an opportunity to get back in that realm,” Beeten said. “My passion kind of took over the last couple years, and that’s what I want to get back to.”

Crossroads was 12-17 this past season, but it is the alma mater of former NBA All-Star Baron Davis and was previously a strong program.

“It’s a full-time opportunity to coach basketball,” Beeten said. “It’s an opportunity to get to Southern California where competitive basketball is huge there. It’s just a new challenge at Crossroads. It’s a sleeping giant. They want to be good again. Hopefully I can bring that back.”

Beeten was 132-44 in six seasons at Clark. The Chargers were 123-30 over the last five seasons, including 22-9 this past season.

“The biggest memories would be the kids I have coached over the last few years,” Beeten said. “I had great administrators that I worked with. And of course, we got three state championships.”

Beeten leaves the program in good shape. The team’s top two scorers were seniors, but the next eight were freshmen or sophomores.

“They’re left in really, really good shape for the next couple years,” Beeten said. “Whoever gets the opportunity to coach there next year will be very happy, not just with the amount of talent there is, but with the type of kids we have there.”

Clark athletic director Don Willis said the school is just beginning its search for a new coach.

“We appreciate what coach Beeten did for us while he was here,” Willis said. “But he’s got a great opportunity out there. We wish him the best.

“We were really young this year, and we think we’ve got a lot of good kids coming back. We want to get them the right coach in and help them be successful.”

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