Ralph Milton Beard Jr. (December 2, 1927 – November 29, 2007) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 collegiate and professional

Professional sports

Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

 basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 player. He was born in Hardinsburg, Kentucky

Hardinsburg, Kentucky

Hardinsburg is a city in Breckinridge County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,345 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Breckinridge County. By Kentucky state law, it is classified as a fifth class city...

. Beard was a member of Adolph Rupp

Adolph Rupp

Adolph Frederick Rupp was one of the most successful coaches in the history of American college basketball. Rupp is fourth in total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach, winning 876 games in 41 years of coaching...

's "Fabulous Five" University of Kentucky

University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

 basketball team. Taken in the second round of the 1949 NBA

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

 draft, Beard played two seasons with the Indianapolis Olympians

Indianapolis Olympians

The Indianapolis Olympians were a National Basketball Association team based in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. They were founded in 1949 and folded in 1953. Their home arena was the Hinkle Fieldhouse.-Franchise history:...

 and averaged 15.9 points and 4.4 assists per game.
Following the 1951 season, Beard and teammate Alex Groza

Alex Groza

Alex John Groza was an American professional basketball player from Martins Ferry, Ohio who was banned from the NBA for life in 1951 for point shaving...

 were banned from the NBA for life by then-commissioner Maurice Podoloff

Maurice Podoloff

Maurice Podoloff was a U.S. lawyer and basketball and ice hockey administrator. He was the first president of the National Basketball Association...

 after the players admitted to point shaving

Point shaving

In organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to prevent a team from covering a published point spread. Unlike other forms of match fixing, sports betting invariably motivates point shaving. A point shaving scheme generally involves a sports gambler and one...

 during their college careers. Beard died at his Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

 home in 2007.

External links

• Ralph Beard profile
• Ralph Beard Info Page at NBA.com