By Tom Haley And Christopher Shaban
Staff Writers
John Barth was one of those athletes who could pick up a ball — any ball — and dominate the competition.
Learning of his recent death, a photo came to mind that appeared with a story on Barth in the Rutland Herald many years ago. He was posed with a javelin, basketball, soccer ball and baseball.
Castleton State College athletic director/coach Dick Terry called Barth “the greatest natural athlete I ever coached.”
He led Terry’s soccer team in scoring during an undefeated 1961 season.
Barth also pitched for the Spartans in 1962 on a baseball team that won its conference. He was 4-1 that season.
He was also outstanding for the Spartans in basketball and track and field.
Barth coached the Windsor High boys basketball teams from 1964 through 1983, winning more than 200 games.
He coached the Windsor girls basketball teams that his daughter Sarah starred on from 1993 through 1996. During those years, the Yellow Jackets went 70-2 and won state championships in 1994 and 1996.
But it was the Windsor High School boys basketball team that he coached in 1978 that Barth will always be associated with.
This small Division I school won the state title and then shocked all of New England by pinning a 74-59 victory over Nashua High of New Hampshire in the New England Tournament.
Nashua was a school many, many times larger than Windsor and had a heralded player named Rich Shrigley who went on to play football at Boston College.
Windsor built a 37-22 halftime lead after Lynn Coffran ran off eight consecutive points. A crowd of 3,400 at UNH’s Lundholm Gymnasium watched in disbelief.
Former Windsor High athletic director Bob Hingston once called that team “the team all other Windsor teams are measured against.”
Paul Righi, Lynn and Lyle Coffran, Steve White, Shaun and Steve Mnarden and Tom Melendy were names that everyone knew for their unmatched achievements.
Righi, a 1,000-point scorer who starred on that 1978 team, said the win over Nashua was reminiscent of the movie Hoosiers.
It was all of that. The entire Connecticut River Valley and the state was buzzing about the Jacks’ stunning win all that weekend and it lives on today.
Barth is a 1957 Windsor High graduate. He leaves an impressive legacy but that victory over Nashua is something that will be passed on from generation to generation.
John Barth was 81.
Barth, Bagonzi linkedBack when Windsor played on “The Stage,” Barth’s Windsor teams and coach John Bagonzi’s Woodsville High teams from New Hampshire squared off in some of the most entertaining high school boys basketball game that you could ever hope to see.
Bagonzi and Barth deployed the same run-and-gum style and when the Yellows Jackets clashed with the Engineers, you sort of expected the winner to eclipse the century mark.
If Bagonzi had been around Castleton in 1962, he would have appreciated Barth’s pitching prowess.
Bagonzi wrote the book on pitching. Literally.
He authored The Act of Pitching and was known as a pitching guru far and wide.
Like Barth, Bagonzi graduated from the school he would coach at. He was drafted by the Red Sox upon graduating from Woodsville and went on to set numerous pitching records at the University of New Hampshire.
Pitching for UNH, he fired a shutout in the first game of a doubleheader and then took the ball and pitched a no-hitter in the second game.
His Woodsville basketball teams went 360-68 from 1958 through 1982 with five state titles.
Ah, then there is Woodsville baseball. He coached the Engineers to a record of 261-60 in that sport while winning seven state crowns.
He could teach pitching like few people could. His Woodsville pitchers combined to throw 25 no-hitters.
Steve Blood pitched a bunch of them. He was seated behind the backstop in West Rutland early this season watching his son Scott coach the Blue Mountain team while keeping the pitch counts.
Father-daughter in HOFJohn Barth was inducted into the Castleton Hall of Fame in 1990.
Later, his daughter Sarah was able to share that HOF with her father when the 1997-98 Castleton basketball team that she played on was honored with its induction.
That team went 21-7 without any player averaging double figures.
What it did have was nine different players averaging at least 5.3 points per game.
That, along with a suffocating defense installed by coach Rich Conover. The Spartans held opponents to 46.4 points per game that season.
That team was comprised of Barth, Sarah Bailey, Stacey Baker, Meghan Burke, Jen Heath, Sarah Paquette, Sarah Ruzzi, Jessica Walker, Janna Walker and Merritt Walker.
tom.haley @rutlandherald.com
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