The real Rick Barnes

[kamoshika]

Tribute piece from last fall prior to Barnes' induction into The University of Texas Men's Athletics Hall of Honor ...

With Barnes set to join eight other inductees in the 58th Men's Hall of Honor class this Friday night at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Austin, it's past time that we let you know the real Rick Barnes.

"Rick is an absolute credit to the college coaching profession," said Duke University and USA Basketball Men's National Coach Mike Krzyzewski. "As much as I admire Rick's coaching ability and accomplishments, I think even more of him away from the court. He's straight-forward, hard-working, principled, humble and as loyal as anyone I know. Simply, he's a terrific person for whom I have the utmost respect."
Texas Longhorns Athletics - The real Rick Barnes

Here's another good piece...

Rick Barnes can’t help but think back to his time with T.J. Ford.

Perhaps it’s because the pair defined Texas basketball in the team’s run to the Final Four in 2003. Or perhaps it’s his close personal relationship with the fleet-footed guard. But on Sunday, his last as the head coach at Texas, it’s what the player taught the coach.

Barnes remembers the Longhorns’ matchup with Stanford on Nov. 1, 2001. Texas was down double-figures when a “little guy” sauntered over to Barnes in the huddle and asked “do you mind if I take this game over?”

Barnes quipped, “Be my guest.” Then Ford, a freshman in only his fourth career game, went on to spur Texas to an overtime victory.

That’s when Barnes said he learned an important lesson: “You might think you’re important, but he’s got this.”

Barnes won 402 games at Texas, and he heaps all of the credit for them on the players who cycled through the program in his tenure. But those that played under him in Austin know he’s meant a lot more to Texas than that.
Longhorns basketball: Rick Barnes leaves lasting legacy at Texas

 

[JohnMcA60]

A great person who will lead our basketball program for a little while before handing it off to another coach to carry it on. Helps that he's also won 600+ games

 

[sport3500]

Maybe we can get a UT-UNC or UT-Duke series going.

 

[1985Vols]

Great hire to stabilize a floundering program. If we get 7-8 good years from Barnes and he gets us back to NCAA tourneys every year like Bruce did he will leave us in good shape for hiring the next coach.

 

[jsc1973]

Maybe we can get a UT-UNC or UT-Duke series going.

If you know anything about Barnes' time at Clemson, he probably still can't appear in Chapel Hill without a bodyguard. He and Dean Smith despised each other, and it boiled over in a few of the games between them. The ACC office had to tell them both to knock it off.

 

[VolStudent247]

If you know anything about Barnes' time at Clemson, he probably still can't appear in Chapel Hill without a bodyguard. He and Dean Smith despised each other, and it boiled over in a few of the games between them. The ACC office had to tell them both to knock it off.

Exactly what I was about to mention. Rick Barnes hates UNC.

 

[u795308]

If you know anything about Barnes' time at Clemson, he probably still can't appear in Chapel Hill without a bodyguard. He and Dean Smith despised each other, and it boiled over in a few of the games between them. The ACC office had to tell them both to knock it off.

Even more reason to like him

 

[jsc1973]

You'd like him more if you knew the whole story.

When Barnes arrived at Clemson before the 94-95 season, the program was in bad shape, and the talent level was such that most people thought Clemson would lose 20 games that season and might not win an ACC game at all. Barnes responded by teaching his team a very aggressive defensive style, similar to what teams in the Big East were using (Barnes came to Clemson from Providence), and which you didn't see in the ACC back then.

They ended up winning 15 games that year and making the NIT. When they played UNC, Dean Smith got upset and complained to the referees that Clemson was roughing up his players. Eventually, he started speaking directly to the Clemson players about it. Barnes hit the roof, and literally got up in Smith's face during a timeout and told him that if he had a problem with one of his players, take it up with Barnes, not the player. Smith kept on doing it for a few more games over the next year, and Barnes kept confronting Smith about it, before the ACC office called both coaches to the league office and told them to stop. That was really a win for Barnes, because he forced the league to call Dean Smith on the carpet.

The funny part about it was that the UNC players handled it better than Smith did, and just started playing defense against Clemson in the same way Clemson played against them.