Even though Burt Beagle was AWOL for one Baruch men’s basketball game back in 1969, the Baruch College Athletic Department decided to go ahead and honor its astonishingly dependable basketball scorer anyway—with a “Burt Beagle Day” that took place January 31. That game he missed so long ago (because a business trip demanded it) was only the seventh in the College’s basketball history.

	Baruch Athletic Director Bill Eng, left, Burt Beagle, and Coach Ray Rankis.

The Saturday afternoon event found Beagle precisely where he likes to be: at the College’s new Athletic & Recreation Complex for a basketball triple-header: the Baruch-Hunter women’s face-off, then the annual Baruch alumni game, and finally the Baruch-Hunter men’s clash. A legendary New York City sports statistician, Beagle was working his 865th consecutive Baruch men’s game that day.

Just before that, though, Beagle was greeted by the crowd, 200 of them in Burt Beagle T-shirts, and a ceremony honoring his long history of devotion and service to the Baruch College athletic program.

“Burt has been a friend, student, coach, sports information director, statistician, and just about anything else asked of him here,” said Baruch’s Asst. Athletic Director and men’s basketball coach, Ray Rankis. “He is a walking institution.”

Now 70, Beagle is a Baruch College alumnus—would you be shocked to learn his day job was as an accountant?—and became its first Sports Information Director in 1968. He also helped to start the men’s baseball team in 1970 and still serves as an assistant coach.

Beagle holds the record for most consecutive basketball games scored at any collegiate level, and he has been the official statistician for the annual CUNYAC tournament, not missing a game since 1970. In addition, he is in his 30th year as the Sports Information Director for the Catholic High School Athletic Association. Beagle estimates that, altogether, he has worked more than 6,000 high school and college football, basketball, and baseball games.