Ed Beard rides around South Norfolk and Portlock almost daily, his tiny Maltese poodle, Duke, strapped in the front basket. Last Sunday was no different - except that Beard doesn't remember how this ride ended.

Around 5 p.m., Beard was riding past Portlock Elementary School when a fight on the baseball field caught his eye.

"There must have been 15 or 20 kids all beating up on one guy," he said. "They got him on the ground, fighting like heck, the real thing.

"One of them must have spotted me."

The onetime linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers thought he could talk down the teens as they approached him. The Chesapeake native has been counseling troubled youths for decades. This, he thought, was something he could handle.

"Have you guys ever been at the Oscar Smith football stadium? It's named Beard-DeLong-Easley," he remembers telling the group, whose members by that time had formed a circle around him. Beard was straddling his bike, Duke in the basket, as he talked to the teens.

Instead of responding, they turned on him.

When Beard awoke, two passers-by helped him wipe the blood off the back of his head. His bike lay on top of him, Duke still in the basket.

Recalling the teens Thursday as he recovered from mostly minor injuries, Beard said, "I stupidly thought I could talk to them. I thought I could make sense to them, get them to resolve a problem, do some good."

During his years in the NFL, Beard would return to South Norfolk during the offseason and talk to schools, youth groups and sports teams about staying out of trouble and doing good.

Now, at 71, he's still involved in youth development programs. He will continue that work, he said, and even include Sunday's events in his talks.

"That was probably the first time I realized times have changed," he said.

"It's not the physical hurt - it's more disappointment."

Beard suffered a concussion, something he laughed off as a taste of the old days on the football field, along with cuts and bruises, a gash on the back of his head, and a black eye.

"I haven't had a black eye since I was probably 12 years old," Beard said.

Beard, a Virginia Sports Hall of Famer and No. 35 on The Virginian-Pilot's list of all-time greatest athletes in South Hampton Roads, said he hopes something good can come out of his experience.

Specifically, more neighborhood patrols, more youth outreach, and prevention of bullying and gangs.

"Those guys beating up on me, they don't know who Ed Beard is," he said. "I hope if one of those guys heard, 'Hey, that was Ed Beard, former NFL football player, that y'all were beating on,' I would hope that, at least, would make them lay off (of others) a little bit."

Beard's wife, Bobbie, said she's "kind of paranoid" now about leaving her house.

"You don't know if they're lurking," she said, adding that she didn't want Beard to go biking the next day.

"But he did."

Chesapeake police are investigating the attack, said spokeswoman Kelly O'Sullivan. No suspects have been identified, but the community is working with investigators, she said.

"I'm still in good shape. I took beatings on the football field; I can handle it," Beard said.

"But what if this had happened to somebody a little older, or someone who wasn't in good shape? They might not have survived."
http://hamptonroads.com/2011/10/former-nfl-linebacker-71-attacked-group-teens-chesapeake