Barry Myers

Barry Myers (September 11, 1938 – August 10, 2017 ) was an American former college baseball and men's soccer coach. He was the head baseball coach at both Jacksonville, from 1967 to 1973, and Mercer, from 1978 to 2003. At Jacksonville, he led the Dolphins to their first two NCAA tournaments, one each in the college and University Divisions. At Mercer, he won three TAAC Tournaments and was named TAAC Coach of the Year four times. A native West Virginian, Myers attended Marshall University, where he played baseball for the Thundering Herd under head coach Bill Chambers. He was also Mercer's soccer coach from 1974 to 1976, amassing a 12–21–3 overall record.

Coaching career

Baseball

Early career After graduating from Marshall in 1960, Myers coached high school baseball in West Virginia for a few seasons. He began his college coaching career as a graduate assistant at Florida State in 1963. He then spent three seasons (1964–1966) at Miami-Dade Junior College as an assistant under Demie Mainieri. In 1964, Miami-Dade won the NJCAA National Championship.

Jacksonville Ahead of the 1967 season, Myers was hired as the head coach at Jacksonville, then a College Division school. Myers said of the hire, "I think coaching at Jacksonville is going to be a tremendous challenge, but that's why I chose coaching as a profession, because of the challenge."

Mercer Myers left Jacksonville to become an assistant at Mercer from 1974 to 1977. He was promoted to head coach to replace Claude Smith. He was Mercer's head coach from 1978 to 2003 and had an overall record of 663–677–5.

After going 32–16 in Myers' first season, 1978, Mercer joined the newly formed Trans America Athletic Conference. In its first five seasons in the league, 1979 to 1983, it had four 30-win seasons and won three TAAC Tournaments. Myers was named TAAC Coach of the Year in each of the tournament-winning seasons. The team returned to the TAAC Tournament in 1984. The Bears won three of the first four TAAC Player of the Year awards, including Craig Gibson's in 1985.

During his tenure, Mercer had 13 MLB draft selections, including a high of three in both the 1983 and 1990 drafts. One former player, Mike Mimbs, went on to play in Major League Baseball.

Head coaching record Below is a table of Myers's yearly records as a collegiate head baseball coach.