How WVU's Beanie Bishop Jr. finds peace outside of football
Every athlete above the high school level is usually so wrapped up into their respective sports, which includes fans connecting them to only their sport, their time being taken by practice and games, but also by a personal drive to improve in their free time.
However, every athlete is also a human with hobbies, so for West Virginia's starting cornerback and transfer student Beanie Bishop Jr., he has a unique passion that many people in the media field can appreciate.
Bishop transferred to WVU at the end of the last season from Minnesota, and also formerly played a lot of football at Western Kentucky.
Now, Bishop has overtaken a starting spot for the Mountaineers as senior, accumulating seven tackles, one interception against Duquesne and two pass breakups thus far.
When Bishop's eyes aren't fully focused on the field though, there's a couple of hobbies that occupy his mind including a love for photography and video games.
"I'm into photography and playing video games. My last year [of college], I was in a photography class," Bishop said.
Although when sports become such a essential and demanding part of your life as an athlete, sometimes these hobbies can be lost for more pertinent things, but Bishop is able to use these things that he enjoys as a calming mechanism and to center himself on football, and that's a unique quality for someone with such a busy schedule.
"I started talking to a psychiatrist, being able to clear my mind and doing things outside of football to make sure my mind is clear," Bishop said.
But when duty calls for the experienced defender, he can flip that switch to focus on football and play it at a high level, banking on himself and his technique.
"Trust your technique and those kinds of things. I don’t think coach will be mad at you for being aggressive but don't go out of your way to make a play and it can cause way more harm than good."
With two games as a Mountaineer now under his belt, Bishop is looking towards what the defense needs to improve on in game three, as Pittsburgh comes to Morgantown for the Backyard Brawl.
"Just coverage skills, sticking to our guys, not letting guys get open down the field and when the quarterback scrambles, just sticking to our guys. That's how they made a lot of plays last week," Bishop said.
"We played hard and we’re improving every week, we just have a lot of things to work on."
Alongside physical skills and technique, emotional stability is important to Bishop and that has been present in his mind since playing for the Hilltoppers.
"I would say in my last year at Western [Kentucky], we played UTSA and it was one of my worst games in college. Seeing that, I promised to myself, it was a sad day, and I told myself I wouldn’t let it happen again and control all my emotions. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low."
When you have a system of support like this, both in your passions and a strong focus in your mind like Bishop, he's coming into this weekend's rivalry matchup against Pittsburgh with confidence in what he and the defensive group as a whole can bring to the table.
"Every game is going to be a lot of passing so I feel like that’s going to fall on the secondary to gel together and improve on coverage skills. I think team's are going to attack us but we’re ready," Bishop said.
"I don’t think there is as much hate [in the Paul Bunyan Axe Rivalry] as there is for this rivalry. We hate Pitt all year around."
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