Barton Reconnects with Coaching Buddies
7/26/2019 10:31:00 AM | Football, General
By: Jacob Pavilack
The college football world is a tightly wound community with schools of all shapes, sizes and classifications scattered around the nation.
Kent State special teams coordinator Zac Barton knows the landscape well. From his playing days as a defensive end at Bloomsburg in Pennsylvania to his current role as Special Teams Coordinator with the Golden Flashes, he has come in contact with many coaches across the country.
No stop might be more impactful than the nine months he spent as a defensive graduate assistant at Nebraska Omaha in 2010. The other GAs on staff with him were current Kent State head coach Sean Lewis and wide receivers coach Matthew Middleton.
"It was fantastic," said Barton. "Those guys were there before I got there and I was the newbie. They played around and coached together, and one of the first things they did was set me up to get yelled at by the head coach. Those two guys thought it was funny after I got my face ripped off."
Despite the early prank, the three built a great relationship and something resonated with Barton about those early days in Nebraska. "Back then it stood out how hard those guys worked," said Barton. Coach Lewis had the tight ends and coach Middleton the wide receivers and I had the defensive line. It's different in Division II and where GAs coach a position and those guys worked their tails off."
Lewis and Middleton were roommates, while Barton lived in a downtown apartment that was condemned, but it was cheap for a GA trying to make ends meet and the three spent an inordinate amount of time together.
"All you want to do is get a full-time job and get out, but we talk about it all the time now, how great it was to be GAs and not have anything to worry about and just coach," remarked Barton. "I was only there for nine months and it was an awesome experience."
Barton may have been there longer than nine months, but right as spring ball was starting up a crushing blow came to the UNO community. The school announced it would make the step up to Division I athletics, but the football program would be sacrificed to make the move financially viable. The gridiron Mavericks would cease to exist.
"That is easily the worst thing that can happen to a program," he said. It was probably the worst thing to happen in my career to watch what happened to those kids. Coach [Pat] Behrns did a fantastic job taking care of everybody. I learned so much in that negative atmosphere about how to treat people. He helped other kids find schools, helped other coaches and even found me a job interview the day they announced the program was cut."
After the program was cut, Barton knew he still wanted to stay in coaching, it's in his blood. His grandfather, dad and uncle were all football coaches.
"It's all I've ever wanted to do," stated Barton. "I know kids change what they want to be when they grow up a lot, but I knew I wanted to be a football coach as far back as I can remember. Being around it with my dad was an awesome experience."
Barton attended Loudan Valley High School in Berryville, Va. and went to Bloomsburg on a partial scholarship. His senior year, he was a force at the line of scrimmage making 10 tackles for loss with six sacks while maintaining a 3.73 GPA in the classroom. The Huskies, who only had a handful of scholarships, advanced all the way to national semifinals before falling to perennial national championship contender Northwest Missouri State which had roughly 30 more scholarships to offer.
After the program disbanded at Nebraska Omaha, he made coaching stops at Memphis, South Dakota and Winona State. He spent six years at Winona State, a Division II school in Minnesota, as its co-defensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator.
After his sixth season working for the Warriors, his old buddy Sean Lewis was named the head coach at Kent State.
"I was in a great place but to come back and work with coach Lewis and coach Middleton," commented Barton. "It's something we literally talked about a decade ago. It's crazy that those things talked about in a basement in Omaha came to fruition. When he called me, my wife and I were absolutely ecstatic."
"It's been great to know coach Barton on a professional level and a personal level," said head coach Sean Lewis. "He's a tremendous ball coach that's coached a lot of different positions. He does a great job interacting with all of guys and an even better man that helps mold our team on a daily basis."
In Barton's first year as the special teams coordinator, he oversaw kicker Matthew Trickett's sensational year making 14-of-17 field goals and earning an All-MAC First Team nod while making a 49-yarder, the longest by a freshman in school history. The kickoff return average also increased by more than five yards per return and two different return men had run backs over 40 yards.
His favorite part of working with the "teams," as they are sometimes called, is the relationships formed with the players.
"I think the best thing about the job is you get to know everybody on the team," said Barton. "To work for someone that lets you have full pick of the roster has been awesome to build relationships with everybody. That's been the highlight of it no doubt, from knowing the linemen on PAT and field goal block to wideouts and defensive backs on returns. Getting to know guys that you wouldn't have any connection with at all unless they were on special teams is really cool."
The football coaching community allowed Barton to make connections with many people, but those days in Omaha in the early part of the decade have had the greatest impact on his career. Both Lewis and Middleton were in his wedding and above all throughout his coaching journey, Barton relishes the lifelong friendships he's built with the men he gets to work with to this day.
"If I'm lucky enough to have a kid I'm going to want him to play for guys on this staff," said Barton. "That's the biggest deal around here the guys that we are working with are not only really good teachers, but they are good people and that makes a difference."
