Jim Beeson

Start with the five small-school First National Bowl football state titles won, and you’d just be scratching the surface of Jim Beeson’s successful footprint left on Alaska high school sports history. His Kenai teams were built to beat anyone and did long before the state’s football-playing school splintered into multiple classifications.

“Beeson’s teams were smart, disciplined, tough and hard working,” said veteran Alaska journalist Matt Tunseth, who played for the 1994 Kenai collection that pulled a playoff upset of sorts on Anchorage powerhouse Dimond. “Those were traits we picked up directly from our coach.”

Beeson finished his Kenai career with 103 victories, placing in the top seven all time in the state’s football coaching pantheon. He was named Alaska’s coach of the year and the Northern Lights Conference’s coach of the year multiple times. He also earned similar honors for boys basketball twice and once for girls basketball. The Kenai Chamber of Commerce gave him the Service to Youth award in 2014, the same year he was bestowed a Key to the City award. Beeson now lives and works in Wenatchee, Wash.

“(Coach Beeson) instilled confidence in me as a young person when I desperately needed it,” Tunseth said. “As priceless a lesson as anyone can ever receive.”