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Tim
Barga is shown here giving instruction to his Yellow Springs girls
team in a district
game at Tipp City two seasons ago against
Tri-Village. This season, Barga will bring his
coaching talents to
Mississinawa Valley boys varsity. CNO File Photo
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Familiar face
surfaces in new place
Barga comes back to Darke County
By George Starks
VERSAILLES- With over 500 career wins to his credit, long time
Versailles girls basketball coach, Tim Barga, will be heading up the
boys program at Mississinawa Valley.
Known for leading many successful girls teams with the latest being at
Yellow Springs, Barga will take the reins of the Blackhawks boys’ team
in 2014-15.
“I’ve wanted a boys team for a long time,” said Barga in an
exclusive interview for CNO. “This was just one of those things that
came up. I’ve coached boys AAU teams before and when the job became
available, I decided to go for it. It’s pretty close to home so it
works for me.”
In most cases, a coach will know some of the players he’s about to
inherit.
In Barga’s case, that’s not the case.
”I know absolutely not one person on that team,” Barga admitted. “I
thought it might be a good time to start. Believe it or not, absolutely
nothing intrigued me about this job. I’m not going to lie to anyone.
It’s close to home. It’s hard to be intrigued about a job when you know
no one. I’m going to work at this like I would any other place and do
the best I can do with what I’ve got. I think they’ve got some talent
over there, I’ve just got to get it out of them.”
With Barga coming in with a track record that doesn’t quit, basketball
starts with one word in the Barga vocabulary.
‘Defense’!
It’s a word Barga has preached for many years.
“Defense will be a big key in my way of doing things,” Barga stated.
“If you don’t give up too many points, you don’t need to worry about
scoring a lot of points. That’s the whole thing. They’re going to have
to bring in their carriage a play defense. There’s no doubt about that.
I’m probably going to play a lot of zone and they’ll probably think
they can just kick back and not do a whole lot but they’re not going to
be able to do that.”
With the departure of Rodney Saintignon, Barga inherits a program
that was starting to gain momentum in the wins department.
Barga will look to pick up the ball and continue to build the program.
“They lost six seniors off last year’s team, so a lot of these boys
have not played a lot on varsity,” Barga stated. “I feel like I’m
pretty much starting from scratch right now. Everything has to start at
the fourth, fifth and sixth grades and I’m hoping by the end of the
season to get these kids close to where we want them at. The lower
grades have to learn how to pass, dribble and shoot and that’s not been
happening from what I’ve seen. It’s not all on the coaches though. It
has to start at home with the parents.”
Starting from scratch is something Barga is accustomed to.
After he left Versailles, Barga landed at Fairlawn High School and got
the Jets program on the right track.
Then Barga went to Yellow Springs and took over a program that had
never seen a winning season.
In 2012, Barga led the Lady Bulldogs to a sectional title and gave
Kayla Linkous and the Tri-Village Lady Patriots all they wanted before
falling in the district title game at Tipp City.
“I don’t like starting from scratch,” admitted Barga. “You go where
you’re needed. At Yellow Springs, I didn’t have many kids there but
they were quality kids. They listened to me and they had a lot of
common sense. I enjoyed coaching those kids and it makes a difference
when you have kids that want to listen to you. They want something from
your teachings and it’s not about winning at basketball but winning in
life. A lot of things I teach kids happens after they graduate. You
just have to work with kids and talk to them a lot.”
With Barga bringing in a winning philosophy, there will be challenges
for both the kids and Barga.
“When I walked into Fairlawn and Yellow Springs, I had no idea what
their schedule looked like,” Barga said. “I had no idea what those kids
were about and that’s what I walking into here. I’m working with boys
and not girls and there lies the challenge but I’m coaching athletes.
Girls are athletes just like the boys are and that’s the way I’ve
always coached. You run the same plays starting at junior high and even
LeBron James still runs plays like a pick and roll. They all run the
same plays and all you need to do is execute.”
Basketball season for the boys will start in November.
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