Sam Barry (2007) - USC Athletics Hall of Fame

Sam Barry

Induction:
2007

Justin “Sam” Barry is the winningest basketball coach in USC history, as he guided the Trojans to a 260-138 record in his 17 years (1930-41, 1946-50). His teams finished third at the 1940 NCAA tournament, won 8 conference crowns and posted 40 consecutive wins over crosstown rival UCLA. He was a leading advocate of the 10-second rule and the elimination of the center jump after each basket. He also developed the triangle offense, which his USC pupil Tex Winter went on to refine. And he introduced the delayed offense (the stall) to the game. He was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1979 and also is in the Pac-12 Basketball Hall of Honor. He also coached the Trojan baseball team, solo from 1930 to 1941 (winning 6 league titles) and then with Rod Dedeaux for 6 more years (1942, 1946-50) as they captured Troy’s first ever-baseball NCAA title in 1948. He is in the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He is among a handful of coaches to have led teams to the basketball Final Four and baseball College World Series. He was a 3-sport star at Madison (Wis.) High and Lawrence College, then finished his schooling at Wisconsin. After starting his coaching career at the high school level in 1917, he moved to Knox College for 4 years (1918-21), where he was the football, basketball, baseball and track coach and the athletic director. At the recommendation of Howard Jones, then Iowa’s head football coach, Barry was hired as the Hawkeyes’ basketball and baseball coach in 1922, also helping Jones with the footballers. Barry won a pair of Big Ten basketball titles in his 7-year stay (1923-29) at Iowa. When Jones came to USC, he again recommended Barry for the Trojan hoops job and an assistant’s role with the football team (he succeeded Jones as the football head coach for a season in 1941). He was a Trojan football assistant for 18 years (1929-40, 1945-50). During World War II, he took a break from his USC duties to serve as a commander in the U.S. Navy. He died on Sept. 23, 1950, at age 57 in Berkeley, Calif., while on a football scouting trip for USC.