Beverly Kearney, affectionately known as "Bev" is one of those rare stars. Her passion and gift for coaching and mentoring has inspired some of the finest athletes to achieve their greatest successes. This includes twelve Olympians winning seven Olympic medals, three of which were gold. Recognized as one of the winnest coaches in the history of track and field Bev was inducted into the prestigious International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Her record of seven national championships is the highest among African-American coaches in collegic sports, and second among women coaches. She has most recently been honored with several other awards including United States Track and Field Hall of Fame and the 2007-08 "Lifetime Achievement Award" for Auburn University marking only the second time in History that a woman has received that award and the first African-American in history to receive the award. In 2009 Woman's Day magazine named her as one of their "50 Women on a Mission" along with such notables as Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Angelina Jolie. Bev has been the Head Coach of the University of Texas Women's Track and Field for seventeen years. She also served as the Head Coach at University of Florida and University of Toledo and Assistant Coach at University of Tennessee. The women she has coached throughout her 28-year career stand out as America's best Athletes with over a 95% graduation rate and a total of 240 All-American's calling her their coach. Bev's many titles do little justice for Bev's ability to motivate, empower and realize matchless goals repeatedly and consistently.

High expectations and uncompromising faith in her athletes could result in her being viewed as a tough coach. But Beverly believes in love first, both tough love and self-love. Her mantra is "believe it, speak it, do it". She believes intensely that one must commit to, and become fully invested in, one's own dreams and the realization of one's personal, spiritual and physical goals.

In 2006, the Buoniconti Foundation honored Bev as a Great Sports Legend. She joins other alumni legends like Michael Jordan and Muhammad Ali. Bev has shared her winning principles nationally and internationally as a speaker on all of the major television networks including HBO and ESPN. She has been featured repeatedly in magazines and journals including People, USA Today and Women's Health. Bev has also been an honored guest at The White House. Her incredible life story has been optioned for a movie with Tri Destined Film's Greg Anderson who has the box office runaway hit "Stomp the Yard" and has a book deal pending.

Beyond her work as a UT Head Coach, Beverly founded Pursuit of Dreams, a non-profit organization providing intervention resources, motivation, and guidance. This has allowed Beverly to draw on her philosophy and use her skills to expand beyond the athletic arena. The organization recently launched a successful motivational mentoring and networking program called "Intimate Conversations with Greatness." The program utilizes trailblazers in athletics, business, politics and the entertainment community to help people, especially youth and those in transition, achieve nothing less than greatness.

Bev, herself, is no stranger to transition and crisis. In her senior year of high school, she lost her mother and was homeless by the age of 17. However, she never let circumstances deter her as she forged on through college and graduate school as a standout athlete and academic scholar. Bev has devoted her life to helping people, who want to help themselves, discover their own goals and dig deep to achieve them.

Beverly believes passionately that everybody can be successful. She lives this model every day through wins and losses, triumphing gracefully through obstacles of all kinds. To call Bev a "survivor" would be a gross understatement in describing the woman who triumphed over a near fatal automobile accident in 2002. The accident left her in a wheelchair with repeated diagnoses that she would never walk again. Beverly persisted with the spirit of a lioness in pursuit. She continued to coach from a wheelchair and then from a walker and now on a cane, ultimately adding two more national championships to her record. Beverly is a living example that greatness is still possible despite extreme obstacles. Through the sheer power of faith, she has come to realize that a positive spirit can outweigh and outlive the most impossible physical circumstances.

Beverly's achievements are a luminous star presently admired with awe and wonder, yet she is indisputably a living legend with the fine points of her legacy still evolving.