Red Barr

Alfred "Red" Barr (August 14, 1908 – June 12, 1971) was an American Hall of Fame swim coach for Southern Methodist University (SMU). He coached the Southern Methodist swimming team for twenty-four years from 1947 through 1971, where he led the Mustangs to seventeen Southwestern Conference Championships, including fifteen consecutive championships from 1957 through 1971.

Barr was born on August 14, 1908, to Bertha May Walker and William James Barr in the small community of Avon, Ohio, outside Cleveland, where he attended Avon High School and graduated in 1926. Demonstrating a high level of academic achievement, he was the valedictorian of his High School class. Outstanding swimmers in 1942 included record holder in breaststroke James Dwire, and Harold Stefl, 200-yard freestyle champion. The team's 1942 WPIAL championship win was close, with Vandergrift High School's swim team coming within seven points of Connellsville's 49 point total. The team also performed well in the 1943 WPIAL championship under new interim coach W.L. Lewis with most of Barr's former swimmers in competition. In the 1956-7 season Connellville dropped varsity swimming as a sport, but resumed WPIAL swimming in the 1970-71 season.

SMU coach After completing his successful high school swim coaching career, and active Naval service, Barr was SMU Head Coach from 1947 to 1971, where he led his teams to 17 Southwestern Conference Championships, the most of any coach in the conference to that date. Fifty of Barr's swimmers and divers received All-American honors, and as outstanding swimmers they led SMU to finish in the top 10 in the NCAA eight times in Barr's tenure as coach between 1962 and 1971, his last nine years. He coached the US men's swimming team to a win at the Pan Am games in 1963. Olympic swimmers he coached included Doug Russell and Ronnie Mills.

In his last ten years of coaching, Barr's SMU teams lost only two meets in dual competition, and while dominating their region won 15 consecutive Southwestern Conference Championships from 1957 through 1971.

In 1966, Barr along with Walter Kaspareit started the Junior Mustang Swim Team. An outstanding youth program, by the late 60's, the team would begin to send a few of its swimmers to the Olympic trials every four years. The Junior Mustangs would be later known as the Dallas Swim Club, under Coach Richard Quick in 1971, and would practice at both the SMU pools and the Highland Park High School pool.

Barr died of a heart attack around 6:30 AM on the morning of June 12, 1971 in the company of his wife Paulie, at a hotel in El Paso, Texas while in town to coach a Junior Olympic meet for the Dr. Pepper Swim Club of Dallas. He was 62. He had had a prior heart attack in July 1963 but returned to coaching. He was replaced by George McMillion, who had been one of his swimmers at SMU and had served as one of Barr's Assistant Coaches. After Barr's death, SMU named its new outdoor Olympic size 50-meter pool, the Red Barr Pool, which included a diving well in his honor. The pool has since been replaced by the new Robson & Lindley Aquatics Center and the Barr-McMillion Natatorium, whose name honors both Barr's legacy and that of George McMillion, the SMU coach that succeeded him.