Junior Justice Beard, already a four-time first-team All-American, will try to win her first national title when she competes in the 2026 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships beginning Tuesday in Evansville, Indiana. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)
It has felt a little lonelier in the pool the past few weeks when University of Missouri–St. Louis junior Justice Beard goes through her training at the Mark Twain Athletic Center.
She’s reached the point in the season where only one meet remains: the NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships, which begin Tuesday at the Deaconess Aquatic Center in Evansville, Indiana. Beard is one of six UMSL swimmers who’ve qualified for the national meet, and she’s the only distance specialist, so she hasn’t had much company for most of her workouts.
“It’s kind of hard,” Beard said, “because you’ve got to find the balance between socializing with the other people, socializing with the coaches, and then pushing yourself – by yourself – in a practice that you’re the only one swimming.”
UMSL swimmer Justice Beard celebrates after her first-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle race at the 2026 GLVC Swimming and Diving Championships. Beard won four individual events and was named the GLVC Swimmer of the Year. (Photo by Jared McFarlane)
It’s not completely new to Beard. She’s trained for and competed in 10-kilometer open water races that lasted more than two hours, leaving her plenty of time swimming in solitude. She’s also had the experience of prepping for nationals each of the past two years and is already decorated four times as a first-team All-American, having finished seventh in the 1,650-yard freestyle as a freshman and coming in second, fourth and fifth in the 1,650-, 1,000- and 500-yard freestyle races last March.
Beard, the Great Lakes Valley Conference Swimmer of the Year, is now on a singular quest to finish first at this year’s NCAA Championships. She enters the meet with the fastest times in the country this season in the 500-, 1,000- and 1,650-yard freestyle events and a chance to become the first Tritons swimmer – and only the third UMSL team or individual in any sport – to win a national championship.
“There’s a lot of pressure,” said Beard, who will also be racing in the 200-yard freestyle. “Not like my team’s putting pressure on me, but I put a lot of pressure on myself. I’ve never been this highly ranked in so many events going in. That’s not something I ever expected.”
Diving in
Truth be told, Beard – a biology major and member of the Pierre Laclede Honors College who has dreams of becoming a veterinarian and one day working in animal rescue – wasn’t sure exactly how good she was as a swimmer when she arrived at UMSL in 2023.
It’s not that she was new to the pool. In fact, she’s been swimming since she was 5 years old growing up just outside Paducah, Kentucky.
“I was originally in gymnastics, but I couldn’t wait in lines,” Beard said. “They were like, ‘Maybe she should come back when she’s older.’ I never went back. I got into swimming, and you don’t have to wait in lines in swimming. You just swim nonstop. It let me get my energy out. I was a very hyperactive little kid.”
Justice Beard has been swimming since she was 5 years old. (Photo courtesy of UMSL Athletics)
Once Beard started swimming, she never really stopped, practicing year round throughout childhood and adolescence and all the way to graduation from McCracken County High School.
Even when the COVID-19 outbreak led to her pool being closed in 2020, she and a few of her teammates would drive more than an hour to Kentucky Lake and don wetsuits so they could get in the water.
But western Kentucky isn’t a hotbed of competitive swimming. Beard had always trained and competed as part of a small club, and though she regularly won races and swam faster and longer than many of her peers, she and her parents were unsure how that would translate to the much more competitive environment of college swimming.
UMSL Coach Tony Hernandez saw the potential in Beard and one of two NCAA Division II coaches to offer her a scholarship, though she had several other offers from NAIA programs.
“I could see how talented she was and how she could race and compete, and I knew she’d have some upside just from not having big, structured swimming before coming to college,” Hernandez said. “She was largely an open water swimmer and came from a very small club team, so we were just hoping we could make her faster. We thought she could be someone that would be able to make an impact for the team.”
That didn’t mean Hernandez was counting on the almost instant success that Beard enjoyed during her first season. She quickly began rewriting UMSL’s record books while earning GLVC Freshman of the Year honors, claiming the school’s first-ever conference championships in women’s swimming and swimming to that seventh-place finish at the NCAA Championships.
Under the surface
Beard swam much of her freshman season with a secret. She’d been dealing with a chronic illness that made it difficult to get proper nutrition and build muscle mass. It sometimes left her feeling fatigued or dealing with joint or abdominal pain, among other symptoms.
“I went all the freshman year without seeing a doctor for it because I had noticed these problems, but I was doing really good in the pool,” she said. “I think this sounds crazy, but I went immediately to the worst-case scenario. I was like, ‘Oh, I have cancer.’ I was like, ‘There’s something wrong with me. I have cancer, and I’m never going to swim again, so I might as well make this season worth it.’”
It wasn’t until the following summer that she finally worked up the courage to seek medical help and get a diagnosis for her condition. That’s when she learned it was not cancer but rather ulcerative colitis, which could be managed with medication and adjustments to her diet.
She was fortunate to find a specialist in St. Louis at Washington University’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center to oversee her treatment.
Justice Beard lifts her hand in celebration after touching the wall first in a conference-record time of 4:50.42 to win the women’s 500-yard race at the 2025 GLVC Swimming and Diving Championships. (Photo courtesy of UMSL Athletics)
“It was taking away from a lot of her recovery and her strength,” Hernandez said of Beard’s illness. “Quite simply, everything she was eating wasn’t refueling her and sometimes was actually doing the opposite – breaking down her muscles and breaking down her joints and giving her extra pain.
“When she started to get treatment for that and get that in order, her perspective was like, ‘All right, I’m just not suffering anymore. It may not be getting all the full strength of my food, but at least I’m not being broken down from what I’m eating.’ So, that was a big relief for her. She’s had a lot more focus on her diet, and it’s definitely added to her discipline.”
Beard still had to endure some mental and emotional turmoil throughout the early and middle part of her sophomore season as she struggled to hit the times she had been targeting. She said there were moments when she doubted she could regain the form from her freshman year.
It was not until the latter part of the season that Beard finally felt like she had a handle on her illness, but it happened in time to fuel another strong finish. At the NCAA Championships, after placing fourth in the 1,000- and fifth in the 500-yard freestyle, she saved her best performance for the 1,650-yard race on the final day.
Hernandez can clearly recall how it transpired.
“She was in third the whole race and down by like a body length in the last 75 or 100 yards of the mile,” he said. “But she completely ran down the girl in second place and finished second herself.”
It was the highest-ever finish by an UMSL women’s swimmer, and she set a school record with a time of 16 minutes, 24.86 seconds, breaking her own mark of 16:34.77.
“She went the fastest split to close her mile of all the girls at the meet and was like third or fourth fastest of even the guys, too,” Hernandez said. “So, we knew the power that she had started to develop and really started to show at that point. We’ve kind of ridden with that all this year.”
Racing toward history
Beard’s illness has been in remission since last summer, leaving little to hold her back during her junior season.
Racing at the Phoenix Fall Classic, hosted by the University of Chicago last November, Beard clocked a pool-record time of 16:29.98 in the 1,650-yard freestyle, finishing only about five seconds slower than what she did at nationals last season.
She’s routinely won 500- and 1,000-yard races in dual meets throughout the winter and even took first in a 200-yard individual medley race against Missouri S&T in December and a 200-yard butterfly against Henderson State in early January.
Teammates gather to celebrate with Justice Beard after she placed second in the 1,650-yard freestyle race at the 2025 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships. (Photo courtesy of UMSL Athletics)
If there was any doubt about her form, that ended at last month’s GLVC Swimming and Diving Championships when Beard not only won the 500-, 1,000- and 1,650-yard races – posting nation-leading times in the first two events – but she also surprised herself by finishing first in the 200-yard freestyle.
“There’s a couple of photos after I’d won the 200 freestyle at conference – which was something I was not supposed to win – and I’m just sitting there crying,” she said. “I’m hugging everyone. I’m just an emotional mess.”
She imagines she’ll be even more emotional if she can turn in a winning time or two – or three or four – this week at the NCAA Championships.
Her preparation has gone well and has tapered down heading into the meet.
“We’re confident what she can do between the flags, just the swimming portion,” Hernandez said. “Maximizing that efficiency in and out of the walls is really important.”
It will also be important to make sure she keeps her body fresh competing in four individual events plus some relays over five days of competition. But she feels good about her routine.
“Obviously, I’m not going to go out and jog in between sessions to clear my mind,” she said. “I’m probably going to throw on the Animal Planet TV channel while I’m sitting in my bed and eat a good meal. I don’t eat things too heavy, though.”
As for any pressure, Hernandez is confident Beard is handling it appropriately.
“She’s excited for it,” he said. “She’s up for the challenge. You can feel a little bit of an edge about her. That’s a good edge about her. She’s got the right level of anxiousness. She’s prepared, so I’m excited. We’re ready for next week to come. Now it’s just being patient, letting the body recover, keeping some of the race details sharp.”
