He later said, "I remember my Air Force drill instructor telling me, 'If you hit every white man who calls you [the "N-word"], you won’t have any fists left.'
"[2] After completion of his military service, Beach attended Central Michigan University from 1956 to 1960, graduating in 1960 with a bachelor's degree in sociology.
Each of those three statistics set a Central Michigan record, as did his yards of total offense[Note 1] and his 1957 single-season rushing yardage, 1,084.
"[4] In addition to playing football, Beach also ran track for Central Michigan, tying the school record in the 100-yard dash.
In the 1965 NFL Championship Game, although the Browns lost 23-12 to the Green Bay Packers, Beach intercepted another legendary quarterback, Bart Starr.
[1][5] In the 1966 season, Beach started in three games and played in five, making one interception (against Sonny Jurgensen of the Washington Redskins) and recovering one fumble.
[1][5] During the 1966 season, on the team's flight home from a West Coast game, Beach was reading Message to the Blackman in America by Elijah Muhammad.
[9][10]: 175–176 [11] Following that season, on June 4, 1967, Beach was part of a group of twelve prominent African-American men ― eleven athletes and one politician ― who, in what is now known as the "Cleveland Summit" or the "Muhammad Ali Summit," met and then publicly supported Muhammad Ali's refusal to be inducted into the United States Army, as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.
[10]: 210 After his football career, among other things Beach served as the youth coordinator for the City of Cleveland under Mayor Carl Stokes, attended Yale Law School, and studied Surat Shabd Yoga in India.
Beach is the CEO of Amer-I-Can of New York, a life skills management program founded by his friend and teammate Jim Brown.