Cinderella Goes to the (Basket) Ball

From the Summer 2006 issue of the Scene, The Magazine of St. Ambrose University

As a Fighting Bees basketball player, Joe Barrer ’03 was recognized as the loveable Cinderella athlete who garners cheers from fans when he enters lopsided contests. After just 37 minutes of varsity playing time, Barrer traded in his jersey for a clipboard and set off to fulfill his calling as a coach.

Never in his wildest dreams, though, did Barrer anticipate he’d play a similar role in helping George Mason, a little-known Division I college in Fairfax, Va., on a Cinderella run to the 2006 NCAA Final Four. Anyone watching could see Barrer on the Patriots’ sideline as a graduate assistant coach, clipboard in hand.

“There’s only one stage like that in the world,” Barrer says. “There have been so many coaches who’ve put a lot of time into this game and never made it there. I was very humbled to sit on the bench in a Final Four game.”

Barrer says his team truly believed it could win two, maybe three games, but understood that Connecticut was a favorite to win it all. After toppling the Huskies, he says, the joy was indescribable. Barrer remembers walking off the court with fellow assistant coach Scott Cherry, each shaking his head and laughing in disbelief.

“It’s a sports cliché, but anything is possible,” Barrer says. “We proved that it can really happen. Anyone on any given night can beat anybody.” And after the “ball” was over, Barrer’s time on the Patriots’ bench paid off with his being named George Mason’s director of basketball operations in June.

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