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 David Palmer
Sports fans were shocked when news broke in September 2007 that Corey Beck had been shot. Beck, who played guard on the national champion Arkansas Razorback basketball team in 1994 and later for the Detroit Pistons and other professional teams, was finished with basketball in 2002 at age 31, and the fans had moved on.
The shooting took place in Memphis in the early morning when two masked gunmen stopped Beck and his friend, Timothy Wilkins, intending to rob them and take their car. When Beck resisted, one of the gunmen raised his shotgun and fired point blank at the side of his face.
Beck, seated in the driver’s side, survived the blast by raising his left arm in an instinctive split second to protect his face. His arm, not his face, took the full force of it. When he rolls up his sleeve, it reveals the damage to his forearm where his mother’s name, “Earnestine,” is tattooed.
Beck managed to drive his car to a fire station, and from there, he was taken to the Regional Medical Center in critical condition. He rallied and was released after two weeks. Wilkins also was treated and released at Methodist University Hospital.
Beck says God intervened in the shooting incident by raising Beck’s arm and protecting his face. It saved his life and began to put him on a different path.
In early June this year, almost three years later, Beck appeared at a meeting of supporters of Chuck Colson’s prison ministry, Innerchange Freedom Initiative (IFI), in Little Rock to affirm his faith in God, to tell part of his story to supporters of the IFI ministry and to offer his own support.
IFI, headed by Scott McLean in Arkansas, is a “Christ-centered, privately-funded program that provides educational, values-based services to prisoners on a voluntary basis to help prepare them to reenter the workplace, religious and community life, and family and social relationships.”
First launched in a Texas prison in 1997, IFI now has eight programs operating in five states including, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota.
In Arkansas, there are IFI programs in both the men’s and women’s units of Wrightsville prison 15 miles from
Little Rock.
Living in the same housing unit, inmate participants spend up to 18 months in the program while in prison. Participants then receive guidance from a mentor and support from a local faith community for 12 months after they are released.
Beck who was initially skeptical when McLean asked him to lend his support to IFI, commented “I’m blessed to be in front of you today.”
Beck told the audience that the shooting was a wake up call after about five years of fairly riotous living, After his last game in 2002, Beck, by his own account, had become “hard and stubborn” and began a slide that included partying, alcohol and drug abuse, a marriage with four daughters that was heading for the rocks and a bank account that dropped from half a million to less than bus fare.
The money problems included falling behind in his support payments for his wife and children, and in 2008, unable to meet his obligations, he faced a judge who gave him a choice—prison or treatment for his addictions. Beck chose treatment and spent nine months getting counseling at a facility in Osceola, Arkansas.
When he got out of treatment in 2009 Beck said, “my wife had moved on.” He decided to settle in Fayetteville and started a paint contracting business.
“I paint houses, rooms, signs. Anything. I’ll even paint your mailbox.” Beck said with a smile. “Painting is my job. My second job is helping kids.”
He was also proud to say that two of his four daughters attend the University of Arkansas.
Asked about his faith after the meeting, Beck said “I have had faith in God since I was a kid, but there were times when I drifted away. One day I will meet God face to face and He will ask me about what I have done in my life. When that day comes, I want to have a good story to tell Him”
As a young Razorback who played in the 1994 national championship game, Beck has a great story to tell sports fans, and modestly shared some of the details. An excerpt from a news clipping in the following paragraphs describes in more detail some of the highlights of that season and Beck’s contribution.
“Without a senior in the starting lineup, playing in the most palatial arena in college basketball with the President of the United States attending four games and led by a coach with a system that could not be drawn up on a blackboard, Arkansas vaulted into the elite of the elite when the Razorbacks won the 1994 NCAA championship, beating Duke by a score of 76 to 72.
“Ranked No. 1 nationally for 10 weeks during the regular season, the Hogs lost only twice during the regular campaign. Alabama beat Arkansas, 66-64, in Tuscaloosa, and Mississippi State edged the Hogs, 72-71, in Starkville.
“Sophomores Corliss Williamson and Scotty Thurman carried much of the load, and junior Corey Beck was the blue collar leader.
“Beck did much of the dirty work, defending with tenacity and leading the team in assists. He and junior Clint McDaniel probably were the best defensive guards in college basketball. Head coach Nolan Richardson certainly thought so.”
When Beck finished his remarks, several others in the audience with an interest in IFI, either as volunteers or former prison inmates spoke briefly and these are some of the highlights:
Jackie King, with her husband Thomas, is an active volunteer.
“I got to Wrightsville every Thursday night, and it has changed who I am, said King. “We’re not there to judge anyone, and through it all we pray about it. The inmates may be confined physically, but their spirits are free.”
She concludes with a laugh, “I just love going to prison!”
Diane Factor is a former inmate at Wrightsville who was in the IFI program and was released about ten months ago. She said, “When I was actively using, there was very little joy in my life. Drug addiction does that to people. IFI helped me establish a relationship with the Lord and gave me the stability to make it on the outside.”
John Purcell, also a former inmate, said, “this is a Christian program, and it’s all about change. The fact is, God has something we need, and he wants to give it to us.
“When I got out, thanks to the IFI program, I wasn’t looking for a handout. I was looking for a hand up. And I got it.”
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