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Summer 2003

Barr None

by Christopher Raab

All photos courtesy Franklin & Marshall Archives

His 1924 Oriflamme described J. Shober Barr as having “a spirit that refuses to meet defeat,” and predicted he would be “remembered and loved long after he has left us.” How true that is.

It all started with a fence.

As a child, John Shober Barr ’24 grew up on West Lemon Street in Lan-caster and attended the Mary Street Elementary School, just a block east of Williamson Field and the nine-foot-high wooden fence surrounding it. Barr desperately wanted to attend Diplomat football games, and he wasn’t going to let that fence stop him.

“It was very high to crawl over, but you could frequently dig your way underneath—pull the dirt away and get underneath,” he explained in a 1981 interview. “And on Saturdays, every home football game on Saturday when I was a kid, [I snuck in . . .] and got to know a lot of the football players. Just to carry a helmet was quite a thrill for a youngster.”

With such weekend adventures began a lifelong love of athletics and a reverence for Franklin & Marshall College.

After high school, Shober took a brief job working for the YMCA in Newark, N.J. When World War I came along, he joined the Navy. Two years later, with the war over, Barr set his sights on Franklin & Marshall, the place he yearned to be as a child, and headed home.

On his first day at Franklin & Marshall, Barr admitted to being “scared to death” of the faculty. “You just sat in awe of your professors and hoped that they wouldn’t speak over your head, or in a language that you couldn’t understand.” But Barr soon realized that despite their serious demeanor, the faculty “were very devoted to the College, and to the students.”

Barr excelled at Franklin & Marshall and was extremely popular among the faculty and student body. He served as class president, captain of the football team, chairman of the inter-fraternity council, president of the glee club, and acted in many Green Room productions.

It has often been said that Barr represented the quintessential “college man” of the 1920s. His senior yearbook, the 1924 Oriflamme, heralded Shober “Tubby” Barr as having “a personality which is most winning, and a spirit that refuses to meet defeat. He will be remembered and loved long after he has left us.”

After graduating with an A.B. in English, Barr took a position with a local private school as a teacher and athletic coach. Two years later, Franklin & Marshall adopted the “freshman rule of eligibility” in intercollegiate athletics, prohibiting freshmen from participating in varsity athletics. President Henry Harbaugh Apple explained that the College wanted all freshmen to spend their first year “hitting the books.” However, organized intramural athletics were allowed. With the new rule came the need for a new coach, and Barr was offered the position of freshman intramural coach at Franklin & Marshall the same year. He gladly accepted the opportunity to return to his alma mater, and spent the next 37 years at the College.

Barr coached all three freshman sports (football, baseball, and basketball) until 1930, when he added varsity line coach (football), and head basketball coach to his responsibilities. Over the next 12 seasons, Barr compiled a 112-53 record as varsity basketball coach, and won five Eastern Pennsylvania Collegiate Basketball championships.

1946-47 football coaches, from left, Barr (assistant), Charles Soleau (head coach), and Milton Bruhn (assistant)

In 1942, President Theodore A. “Prexy” Distler asked Barr to “come up out of the gym” and join the College administration as director of admissions and dean of freshmen. Barr accepted the challenge and soon found himself working with the newly established Navy V-5 and V-12 programs. “At that time, V-5 was Navy aviation and V-12 was the sea-going Navy. We had only 150 civilian students because fellows went to war or were drafted.” During that same year, Barr was elected to the Lancaster YMCA’s Board of Directors, a position he would hold for the next 23 years.

With the war over and enrollment on the rise, President Distler asked Barr to return to the athletic department in 1951. For the next 12 years, he served as director of athletics and professor of physical education, overseeing the College’s physical education program, campus athletic facilities, and collegiate sports programs.

Barr, far right, at the 1948 Navy Honor Award ceremony with President Theodore A. Distler at the microphone

Throughout the 1950s, Barr’s contributions to collegiate athletics extended far beyond Lancaster. From 1952 to 1955, he served on the NCAA Television Committee, helping to establish the standards that shaped nationally televised collegiate football. From 1954 to 1956, he served as vice president at large for the NCAA, a singular honor for Barr and a prestigious honor for a small liberal arts college like Franklin & Marshall.

In 1957, Barr broadened his definition of “community” when he took a sabbatical leave and traveled with his wife to Afghanistan. His mission was to advise the Afghan minister of education on the establishment of teacher-training programs for physical education teachers. He traveled throughout the country, sharing his knowledge of physical education and teacher training.

Shortly after the completion of the new Mayser Athletic Center in 1963, Barr announced his retirement. It had been a successful 37-year career, filled with contributions to both the College and the Lancaster community. That same year, Barr was presented with the Lancaster Sportswriters’ Headliner Award for his “lifetime contribution to Lancaster County athletics.”

Speaking on behalf of Franklin & Marshall College, then-president Keith Spalding praised Barr for his long service to the College, his work with the YMCA, and his many contributions to collegiate athletics. “I doubt there are very many men alive who have so many first-name friends. He’s clearly influenced an awful lot of lives. It was not only the excellence of his work, but his personal sincerity and the integrity of the man.”

After leaving Franklin & Marshall, Barr spent a short time with the consulting firm of Marts and Lundy Inc., serving as a fund-raising counselor to educational institutions. In 1983, he was again honored by the Lancaster community for his “outstanding contribution to community service.” At a banquet in his honor, he was presented with the Lancaster Exchange Club’s Golden Deeds Award.

Barr died at his Lancaster home Nov. 8, 1989. He was 91.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of his retirement from Franklin & Marshall College. Barr embodied the Franklin & Marshall spirit—as a student-athlete who loved to compete, as an athletic coach who mentored and cared for his players, and as a volunteer who gave his time, his energy, and his commitment to the college and the city he loved.

Christopher Raab is Archives and Special Collections librarian at Franklin & Marshall College. He joined the College in November 2002, and is a regular contributor to the “When & Where” section of the magazine.