The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1318516
38 ■ THE WOLFPACKER play in Madison Square Garden. I was this little country girl from Benson up in New York City. I got to learn what the best of the best looked like and acted like." She always craved opportunities to com- pete against top competition in the biggest moments. During her time at NC State, the Wolfpack hosted then-powerhouse programs such as UCLA and Immaculata College. Beasley recalls one particular moment with Yow during a postgame meal following a loss to Immaculata. "After the game, we all went out to eat at Two Guys on Hillsborough Street, which was our go-to place to eat after games," Beasley said. "We took Immaculata's team over, including the nuns that coached them. "I remember going up to Coach Yow and asking, 'We played pretty good. Could we get tomorrow off from practice?' I'm just looking at her, smiling at her, like, 'Aren't you proud of me?' "She goes, 'Genia, we did lose the game.'" An Optometrist On A Mission Beasley always thought she would become a pediatrician after her time at NC State. She spent nearly a decade working in the game of basketball before fulfilling that prophecy. Following her senior season in 1980, Beasley played professionally for one year in the former Women's Basketball League. She won the championship in her one sea- son with the Nebraska Wranglers before the league went belly up at the end of the 1980- 81 campaign. After her brief pro career, she returned to NC State to become a graduate assistant on Yow's staff. That began a seven-year coach- ing journey which included stops at Tennes- see Martin and South Florida before she de- cided basketball was no longer her passion. In her final year of coaching at South Florida, she decided to shadow a sports medicine optometrist that worked with the university's athletes. She considers it her 'aha' moment. "I could probably do this for children," Beasley thought. "I can get back to what I wanted to do with pediatrics and work with sports vision." Beasley unknowingly suffered from dou- ble vision throughout her adolescence and early adulthood. She shot baskets in her driveway as an outlet of frustration after get- ting severe headaches from reading for short periods of time. "I thought everybody that read saw double after 20 minutes of reading," Beasley said. "It never came up in a conversation. My mom never asked me; nobody ever asked me — I just thought it was normal." Beasley learned that her condition was abnormal while studying the topic in optom- etry school. With less than a year of vision therapy, she was able to correct the issue before graduating in 1994. "All of a sudden reading was so much easier," Beasley said. "I empowered myself. I told myself, 'I'm probably not the only one who got missed.' I wanted to do something about that." After graduating, Beasley went to Phila- delphia and spent five years in a residency program that specialized in binocular vision disorders and developmental vision. She then continued her research and taught for five years at Villanova, where she read every book in the library on her specialized area of study. Beasley returned to North Carolina around the turn of the millennium and spent two years with a multi-doctor practice before opening her own office in Charlotte. Now the owner and clinical director of All Ages Vision Care, Beasley is living her dream by helping children with visual defi- ciencies overcome their challenges through therapy. "That's my new passion," Beasley said. "There is some competition to it. How can I help this person? How can I empower this person? What's the quickest way to get there? How are we going to get results? "People appreciate that drive because they know they're going to get the best that they can get." ■ Beasley unknowingly suffered from double vision throughout her adolescence and early adulthood, but self-diagnosed herself while reading about it in optometry school and now helps similarly empower her patients with visual deficiencies through therapy at All Ages Vision Care. PHOTO COURTESY ALLAGESVISIONCARE.COM Beasley (center) was legendary head coach Kay Yow's first big recruiting catch from the state of North Carolina, and went on to lead the Wolfpack to an overall record of 105-23 (.820 winning percentage) with final national rankings of No. 10, No. 3, No. 11 and No. 10 during her four seasons. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS