Waterford – We all know Griffin Beaney, even if we’ve never met him. The textbook teammate, consummate classmate. The kid in school who fits everywhere, with everybody. The rarity whose musings offer clarity and hilarity. Indeed, if parents ever wonder how kids should act, they could always look at what Griffin Beaney happens to be doing at the time.

Beaney graduates tonight with his classmates on the turfed lawn of 20 Rope Ferry Rd. Frankly, it’s time to salute the kid who played every sport, yet hardly played at all. And never complained. Rather, he carried a lamp, looking to illuminate.

“A tremendous leader,” his basketball coach, Greg Gwudz, was saying earlier this week. “High character. High integrity. He epitomizes that it’s not about the minutes you play, but the impact you have. And Griff will have a lasting impact with me and everyone else in the program.”

Beaney played basketball and baseball for the Lancers. He’s a multiple-time winner of the league sportsmanship award. He really ought to win something tonight at graduation. Because Waterford has rarely produced another kid who loves the school and the town more.

He comes by that much honestly. The Beaneys could be Waterford’s first family. They love it. It loves them. And not to dive head first into Utopia, but you wonder what all our cities and towns would be like with more Beaneys, who are there for all the kids, not just their own.

Rick Beaney, the dad, stays heavily involved in youth baseball, even with both his kids well north of youth. Sharon, the mom, is one of the town’s Everymoms. That’s Sharon frequently at a table outside the Birdseye — the little ray of sunshine, as she’s known — taking tickets and money during “steak nights” that raise funds for something involving the kids. Lucas, the older brother, a UConn grad, came back as one of the coaches for the 13-year-old Babe Ruth team that made the World Series last summer.

The Beaneys went to all of Griffin’s games. All the ones he never played. And never said word one. You know how that goes, sometimes, with parents who feel the world has run afoul of them because the coach plays someone else.

“You can tell how he was raised,” Gwudz said. “He was the hardest working kid in practice we had. He never complained. He was a freshman when the program was cut. He’s one of the five kids we kept anyway. He was just one of those kids that united everybody.”

Beaney was part of a running joke all basketball season. He made some bets with people (me included) that involved whether he’d dunk in a varsity game. Seemed a safe bet. Not because he didn’t play much, but because he didn’t appear to jump higher than the curb. Until one game when we all saw our wallets flash before our eyes. He gathered himself, with some room and a clear path to the basket.

And who knows, he may have dunked had his right knee not folded like a card table. Everyone — teammates, coaches, fans (and the media) — wanted to laugh, except we weren’t sure if the kid might need surgery. Turned out he popped right back up.

“I’m sure we’d have all lost our money on that one if his knee didn’t crumble,” Rick said later. “After all, he is such a superior athletic specimen.”

Rick, too, wants it noted that his son never hit a home run in baseball either, “even though he considers a Little League scrimmage game a real game.”

Rick will be here all week, folks. And don’t forget to try the veal.

That’s the Beaneys. No one is spared. No one wants to be.

Griffin is off to Villanova, where he’ll be the main guy on the Main Line sooner, not later. He wants to own a restaurant one day, even threatening now and again to take over Mr. G’s when Peter and George are ready for the golf course permanently. Whatever he opens will be sports themed and home of the best needling in town.

Full disclosure: There is a risk in writing such things, so as not to embarrass the kid by turning him into Bishop Tutu. But ask anybody in the 06385. The party is always livelier with the Beaneys there.

“Whenever he talked during the season, everybody listened,” Gwudz said, “even the coaches. It shows you the respect he earned.”

Good luck to Griff at Villanova. He’ll come back to Waterford soon enough. That’s the way he was raised. To the town’s everlasting good fortune.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro. Twitter: @BCgenius