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The Barber family bleeds blue and gold. The Barbers are intrinsically linked to the Troup baseball program and vice versa. Over the last four decades, there has rarely been a time when a Barber wasn’t in the dugout for Troup baseball. 

Richie Barber, an assistant coach with Troup baseball, played with the Tigers from 1980-83 and then watched his sons Brock and Blake play during their times playing at Troup in the late 2000s and now, the three are all on the coaching staff of the Tigers that just won the GHSA 3A state championship series, the first state title in program history.

All three of the Barbers walked different paths to end up coaching at Troup High. The first Barber to get hired as a coach for the Tigers was Brock. In fact, for one season in 2009, Brock got to coach his younger brother, Blake.

“From a young age, I knew that when I was done playing, I would end up coaching, so when I got the chance to come back and coach at Troup, I jumped all over it,” Brock said. “To come back and coach here during his senior year and watch him have all the success he had was very special.”

“It was fun,” Blake said. “He always focused on the pitchers, so he didn’t really coach me a whole lot. We’ve always been together on the ball field, so it really didn’t feel that much different.” 

A year later, Richie would join the staff as the hitting coach. Blake continued to play baseball in college and tried his hand at professional ball overseas. The youngest Barber joined the staff in 2014 to work with the infielders.

The three Barbers all played their part in the Tigers winning the state championship. Blake coaches the infielders, Brock works with the pitching staff and Richie is the hitting coach. 

When Troup baseball made a coaching change heading into the 2020 season, there was a bit of uncertainty for Richie about whether or not he would be retained.

“When Coach (Tanner) Glisson took over, I basically had to interview for the job again,” he said. “I figured he wanted to bring in his own guys, so I didn’t really know where I fit for the first time since 2010. I knew he was going to retain Brock and Blake because their numbers speak for themselves, but there have been some years where the hitting hasn’t been where I wanted it to be.”

Eventually, after lunch and multiple long talks on the phone, Glisson retained Richie as the hitting coach, and the trio of Barbers stayed together. 

The Barbers have given their fair share to baseball over the years, and the game has been kind to them in return. 

“Baseball has been really good to our family,” Richie said. “My boys went to college, and it didn’t cost me a dime. It has allowed my boys to travel the world. We love this game. Are we the best coaches? No, but we are going to be there every day and give it our all.”

Baseball has been the lifeblood of the Barber family for years now, but that was not always the case for Blake. The youngest of the Barber brothers originally applied his craft on the soccer field. Richie, the patriarch of the family, always encouraged Blake to pursue his soccer dreams, but was relieved when his son finally decided that baseball would be what he put his heart and soul into.

“I coached him one year while playing soccer, you remember that?” Richie asked Blake.

“Oh, I remember like it was yesterday. He showed up at practice, and he’s got Google sheets out, printed off, some sheets and drills,” Blake answered as the two shared a laugh. 

When Blake reached high school, he decided to pivot from soccer to baseball.

“I’ve never told him this before, but I was freaking out behind closed doors about whether he would play soccer or baseball in high school because they are both spring sports,” Richie said. “I wouldn’t have known how to act at a soccer field.”

Brock always believed that Richie took it easier on his younger brother because of this transition.

“He could be hard on me and had to be a little softer on Blake,” Brock said, laughing. “If he yelled at my brother, he would pack up shop, so he had to coddle him a little more.”

While three Barbers share the dugout on game days for Troup baseball, there have pretty much always been four Barbers present in total. Richie’s wife, Karen, mother of Blake and Brock, has spent more time on “the hill” overlooking the Troup baseball field than just about anybody else.

“Mama Barber knows her stuff,” Richie said, chuckling. “She’ll let an umpire know in a minute if he messed up. She has been there every step of the way… she is all in on Troup baseball.”

Brock added that she has probably spent “thousands of evenings up there.”

For the Barbers, Troup baseball is truly a family affair, and there is no chance of that stopping any time soon.  

“It’s funny, because I coached them all their life growing up, through travel ball and whatnot, and then to hear them at practice, I hear them saying a lot of stuff that I used to say to them. Now, they’re telling the kids, so it feels like a full circle,” Richie said.