BEHIND THE BENCH
“He’s helped me a lot,” freshman guard Trevon Bluiett says of Chris Barbour. “We have academic meetings once a week. It’s kind of a time for us to organize the week and figure out what needs to be done. Without that, I don’t think I’d be doing as well I am.”
ACADEMIC TRADITION PLAYER RELATIONSHIPS ARE KEY TO CHRIS BARBOUR’S SUCCESS BY RORY GLYNN
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WHEN CHRIS BARBOUR, XAVIER’S ACADEMIC ADVISOR FOR MEN’S BASKETBALL, was a young student-athlete himself, he once neglected a household chore and paid a hefty price. After failing to wash the dishes at his family’s Covington home, he was told by his father, Willie, a Baptist minister and former military man, he wouldn’t be playing football that fall. “Everything had to be in order for you to be able to do anything: Take care of the home, take care of school, and then everything else we’ll talk about,” says Barbour, who retells the story without bitterness. “It was a hard lesson to learn at the time, but one that affected me moving forward. I impart some of that to the guys now. Not using the same method, obviously, but I try to convey some of the same messages.” Barbour is in his fourth year working with the men’s basketball program in the role Sister Rose Ann Fleming made famous. It’s not always easy to follow the path of a Hall of Famer who’s been immortalized with a book and a bobblehead; her gold standard includes a streak of graduating every men’s basketball player who reached his senior year at Xavier. But Barbour, promoted in March to the new title of assistant director of student-athlete academic support services, succeeds by continuing the culture of accountability while bringing his own talents to the study table. “The way Chris goes about bettering our players, teaching them what it means to be successful here at Xavier, is something he takes great pride in,” men’s basketball coach Chris Mack says. Barbour is 39 but looks like he could be a player’s big brother; they call him C.B. He’s a familiar face on campus—he holds both undergraduate (organizational communications) and
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master’s degree (sport administration) from X—and often knows players’ professors because he had them, too. His canon of inspirational quotes (a jar of them rests on his desk in the Conaton Learning Center) includes nuggets that range from Jesus to Jay-Z. “He is able to relate to the players, and he’s also a very detail-oriented person,” Sister Rose Ann says. “He can look at their syllabi and chart out in great detail exactly what needs to be done, which is important for an adviser.” Barbour, who interned for Sister Rose Ann, now works with Angela Wyss, director of student-athlete academic support. He meets weekly with each player (and an assistant coach, ensuring nothing is lost in translation). He coordinates study tables, at home and on the road. At home, study tables are 7 to 9 p.m. five nights a week, with a monitor; players with GPAs below 3.0 must attend, though all are welcome. On road trips, it’s sometimes more organic. When Xavier traveled to Providence, he held a session in his hotel room, with one player at the desk, one in a chair, and a third atop a bed. “It has a family feel,” Barbour says. “They know we’re all in it together.” That includes Barbour. While at Providence, he took time to meet and exchange ideas with PC’s academic adviser and discovered she displayed A and B work by student-athletes on a corkboard in her office. “I just ordered my corkboard today,” he says. As a two-time Xavier graduate, Barbour is in a unique position to spread the school’s message to both current studentathletes and recruits. “One thing I tell recruits is, a lot of colleges can hand you a degree,” he says. “But when you put some sweat equity into it, when it means something to you, you don’t mind putting that degree up on the wall and bragging a little about it. “Here at Xavier, you’re getting a student-athlete, and not an athletic student. We’re definitely putting the student first.” Says Mack: “He’s very dedicated to Xavier. I wouldn’t trade him for the world.”
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