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Aiden Beadles named Putnam County Defensive Player of the Year
Chances are pretty good if you saw South Putnam on defense and an opposing player with the ball, Aiden Beadles was in your frame of vision or about to be in it.
The Eagle senior was named the Putnam County Defensive Football Player of the Year in 2022 after amassing 174 total tackles, setting a school record with 100 solo takedowns, and was among the top tacklers in the state.
Beadles managed to improve upon those stats as a senior, breaking the 200 count for tackles with 203, leading the state and being among the top tacklers in the nation, recording 126 solo tackles while adding 39 tackles for loss, including 10 sacks, and two fumble recoveries, recording no fewer than 12 tackles in 11 games while amassing 35 stops against Cascade and 25 against Indianapolis Lutheran.
These efforts led Beadles to be named as the Putnam County Defensive Player of the Year again for the 2023 season, voted upon by the coaches of the four Putnam County schools.
In talking about his previous campaign, Beadles said he was looking forward to participating in wrestling and track while also getting chances to work on his skills at camps between football seasons, all things the senior said went to plan last year.
“Wrestling went well (in the 2022-23) season, where I won my weight class in the county meet, while also winning shot put at the county meet,” Beadles said about having success in his other sports. “I got into a couple of camps this summer, an Indiana State individual camp and a Purdue camp.
“Those were both chances to improve my skills and to get my name out there a little bit.”
While honing his skills were important, Beadles said taking on a bigger leadership role was equally as important between his junior and senior year.
“Coming into this year, we had a lot of younger kids on the team,” Beadles noted. “I took on the role of trying to teach them.
“I felt my skills were pretty refined, although there is always room for improvement. We had a lot of important freshmen coming in that needed help and I helped teach them what it was like to be playing at the varsity level and prepping them to play a varsity football game.”
In particular, an incoming freshman that could stand eye-to-eye with Beadles was one of the first to reach out as both played a similar position and the senior willing to share knowledge the same way those before him had done for him.
“The lineage of linebackers at South Putnam has been great,” Beadles said. “Recently, guys like Dalton Scott, Parker Harris, Matt Goodpaster and myself have been good but I think Keenan (Mowery-Shields) is going to blow us all out of the water.
“He had a lot of want and drive to be better, coming to me at the end of football last year wanting to learn. We spent a lot of the offseason working on footwork, hip mobility, how to read the field and where to go, reading keys, learning when X player goes this way, he needs to go there.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better protégé to work with because he came up ready to learn, work with me and he’s going to do great,” Beadles added.
With a strong returning nucleus of players returning on both sides of the ball, Beadles said the team understood what it had to work with and made it a point to build upon that talent throughout the summer and into the start of the 2023 season.
“This past summer, we had the most consistent amount of people at practices,” Beadles said. “We weren’t having to make calls and trying to find people during the summer.
“Our practices went well, as did the camps and scrimmages we attended. This summer was one of the best we’ve had at South Putnam and it really reflected into our early season games. Our first couple of weeks of practice, we were pumped and ready to go.
“We knew after the Cloverdale game and heading into the game against Owen Valley that the (Patriots) had been a tough team for us the past couple of years,” Beadles added. “We went out there, put in the work and things paid off at Owen Valley.”
Of the games that will take place during the 2023-24 athletics calendar, perhaps the most notable of all will be the week four game between South Putnam and Greencastle.
In a game that featured 100 points for the first time among two county football teams, the Tiger Cubs would secure a win in the final moments 51-49, a game Beadles said was a reality check for the squad.
“Greencastle was a tough loss,” Beadles ruminated on. “Putting South Putnam and Greencastle together, it doesn’t matter who had a better season to that point or who was playing better or worse coming in to the game; it’s going to be a great game no matter what.
“We had some tough coverages, having to throw some younger guys into the game due to injury, and while it was a huge blow, it was also a huge learning moment. Up to that point, we had been beating teams and there hadn’t been a ‘be humble’ moment.
“Greencastle drove that point home to us,” Beadles added. “The game showed us we weren’t at our best point and wouldn’t be until we were just focusing on the next play. It was a tough loss but it built us from there.”
With county and conference hopes no longer in their hands, the Eagles mowed through the next three games before the schedule ramped up ahead of postseason play with outings against Heritage Christian and Cascade, both of which provided the team with plenty to work though
“The Heritage Christian game proved to us that our skills were there and that we could put them all together for a full game,” Beadles said. “Cascade was a humbling moment that was really close down to the end.
“We were able to pull it together, fight through and win that game, but it kept us humble going into sectional play. We couldn’t think too highly of ourselves as we got ready for the teams that have had recent success in the tournament.”
After defeating North Central to open sectional play, the fated hour arrived as South Putnam hosted two-time defending state champions Indianapolis Lutheran in the sectional semifinal.
The Eagles challenged the Saints in a way no team had to that point, driving with a chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter before ultimately falling 21-14 to the eventual three-time state champs.
“It’s not the finale you want unless you’re walking out with a state title,” Beadles said about his final game as an Eagle. “I was happy we got to play at home for my last game and had so many people out there supporting us.
“If we fixed a few mistakes here and there, maybe we can pull that game out, but it was a game about who made the fewer mistakes. Even though we made those mistakes, they weren’t the kind where I felt like it was the worst day of my life.
“It will be a memory of getting to play with people I know, giving Lutheran a fight and with so much support behind us, which makes things better,” Beadles added.
Beadles said the team had its usual goals of county, conference and sectional and despite setbacks, the senior said the team never let itself get down if one of those goals wasn’t met.
“We put the county first and then the conference,” Beadles said. “Things didn’t work out the way we wanted them to this year. Props to Greencastle as it was a great game against them.
“Once those things were over, we focused on winning the next game and got mentally ready for the sectional. We put in the work each week, focusing on winning each game and working toward play at another level.
“Even during sectionals, we had some great practices but Lutheran was a really great team,” Beadles added.
Individually, Beadles was named an All-County, All-WIC and All-State linebacker once again, matching the same accolades he had received as a junior.
“This year, I set out to do better than last year,” Beadles said. “I had some better stats here and there but I mainly wanted to lead the defense out there more than I had the year before.
“I set out to also get the same kind of recognition as last year while also aiming to make the Top-50 list. That was tough being from a small school but I was still able to make All-State as a senior. I met the goals I had for myself, though it would have been nice to top it off with a state title.”
Even though he didn’t get to make a trip to Lucas Oil Stadium as a player, Beadles said the talent level at South Putnam wasn’t going to drop off like many might expect and said the returning players would have the same mindset of taking the team all the way to the state finals.
“Right now, those freshmen are some of the hardest-working kids at South Putnam,” Beadles pointed out. “Even if things don’t work out next year, by the time they’re juniors and seniors, they’re going to be winning championships.
“Next year will come down to the current juniors, as seniors, growing into leadership roles and lead the underclassmen that will be playing with them. I’m excited to see who steps up and takes on that role, the guy that will push that team because the potential is enormous.”
Though he had played his last down for South Putnam, Beadles continued what has been a long succession of strong academic and athletic players for the Eagles and hoped those coming along in the future continued to build off what he and others had done for the program.
“Most people would say the stats, the great games but overall, I hope what I’ve left to those coming up is the ability to stay humble, to succeed with honor and to not be too self-absorbed,” Beadles said. “One thing I’ve tried to do throughout my career is to never let things get to my head.
“There’s always a chance things could change one day, whether it was getting injured or something else happened, so I didn’t take a game for granted.”