Cecil Barber: Clinch County High School
Barber was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2003.
Cecil Barber is credited with helping put Clinch County baseball on the map. Under Barber’s leadership, Clinch became a Georgia High School Association Class 1A dynasty in the 1980s. He was inducted into the Georgia Dugout Club Hall of Fame in 2003.
Barber finished with a career record of 436-152 in two stints of coaching baseball at Clinch County. After restarting the program in 1983 from the ground up, Barber took Clinch County to the state semifinals in 1985. From 1986 to 1992, Barber helped Clinch win five state baseball titles in a seven-year span (1986, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 1992). Clinch County also won a state title in 2003, giving Barber six baseball championships.
The legendary coach won 13 region titles and was named Coach of the Year six times. In 2021, he was inducted into the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Barber took over as the head football coach in 1994 and won 92 games as well as the 2002 championship. His football title that year and his baseball title in 2003 gave him two championships in the same academic year.
The longtime coach was defensive coordinator on two other Clinch County football championships in 1988 and 1991. Barber was a part of nine state championships at the school.
Barber’s 1989 baseball championship completed the school’s Triple Crown as Clinch became the state’s only school in history to win titles in football, boys basketball and baseball in the same academic year. In 2005, Clinch County named its baseball field "Cecil Barber Field."
“There are a lot of good baseball coaches out here, so I was elated to be inducted into the Hall of Fame,” Barber said. “We had a lot of good players. I was blessed to meet a lot of good coaches, and I mean good men, over the years.”
Barber was hired at Jeff Davis in 2003 where he coached the football team and was the athletic director for one season before retiring.
The longtime coach, however, wasn’t done. In 2011, he came of retirement and took back over the baseball program at Clinch County for three seasons before retiring again after the 2013 season.