February 6, 2004

     MERIDEN: This story begins when Gervais Barger Jr. really was junior, age 5 and along for the trip when his dad's AAU basketball team played in Oklahoma.
     The players were 16 and 17 and Barger was the designated baby brother. You know how those trips go. During down time the older boys took him to an arcade and helped him rake in prizes at skee ball.
     The take didn't exactly impress Gervais Barger Sr. back at the hotel. "Where you guys been? You took my son. I didn't even know where he was."
     That was a rare occurrence. Over the course of Gervais Barger Jr.'s playing career, which dates back to age 9, Gervais Barger Sr. has always known where his son has been: On the court, right in front of him.
     Starting with AAU, and now at Platt, Barger has always coached his son. This year, they are in their last basketball go-round together. They have the Panthers at 7-6, one game shy of the state tournament, heading into tonight's game with Newington.
     "I'm playing some of the best basketball I've ever played in my life," said Barger Jr., the area's second-leading scorer at 19.5 points a game. "I'm really satisfied with the way I've been playing. On the team, I'm really impressed with the way we've come along."
     If that last part is spoken like a coach, it's because Barger Jr. is very much one on the court. As the lone returning starter, he is the undisputed leader of a young team. Junior is now a senior, and the designated big brother.
     This requires a balancing act. Barger Jr. is expected to carry the team, yet given the attention he draws from opponents, he also must defer to younger teammates. For this reason, he pushes them in practice.
     "I applaud them for accepting their roles on the team and putting up with me," he said. "I'm hard on them. I want to get everything I can out of them. I need everything I can out of them. I try not to be too harsh, but I'll yell. It won't be something to put them down. It'll be, 'come on, you've got to make your layups; you've got to shoot that when you're open.'"
     "It's not all about him," notes coach Barger. "But on the other hand, if he does well, we do well."
     Which brings up the inherent baggage of being the coach's son. Someone's always going to look at you sideways. There will be whispers about preferential treatment.
     In this case, it's worked the other way. Barger Sr. said he is extra demanding on his son. "There's no doubt," he said. "I expect him to be tougher. I expect him in some instances to be super human."
     "He's been around the game all his life. Because of that, I really expect more from him sometimes than I would from a kid who hasn't had those kinds of experiences. It doesn't always happen, but there are nights when he just lights up the gym."
     Such a night came last Saturday. Barger had 27 points, 22 rebounds and eight assists in Platt's 53-50 double-overtime win over Southington. He hit two free throws with 1.9 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, a layup with seven seconds left to force a second OT and then two free throws with 20 seconds left to secure the win.
     That's star quality. So even as he says, "I try not to take it all on my shoulders," Barger Jr. relishes coming through in the clutch.
     "All our overtime games, I'm the one at the line, hitting those free throws, sending our team over the top," he said. "My teammates look at me and I see it in their eyes. They're saying, 'yeah, that's our man there.'"
     Barger Jr. is having a blast playing this year. He likes his teammates. There's no selfishness, no head cases, he said. Just guys who like to play and get better.
     For himself, Barger Jr. feels he's finally reaching his potential. Shucking some "coach's son" baggage has helped.
     "The past couple years I haven't had seasons as great as I expected," he said. "Part of that was because my dad was the coach and I was kind of scared of what people would think.
     "I think that I was putting too much pressure on myself," Barger continued. "Now, I've reached a point where I don't care what other people think. I just go out there and do what I love to do and try to take other people up to that level with me.">br?      Basketball has been Barger Jr.'s only game. He played freshman football, but found it took too much time away from hoop. During the offseason, along with playing AAU, Barger joins pick-up games on Tuesdays and Thursdays and works individually on his game Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
     He hopes to play in college. Many Division III schools have expressed interest. Given his interest in engineering and computer science, Barger Jr. said academics will dictate which school he attends more than basketball.      "I don't think that will be a problem for me," he said. "I'll miss it, but I'm just going to have to accept it. Hopefully, the coach will be someone I can have a relationship like I've had with my dad, where we were able to talk about stuff, because I believe I have a lot of knowledge about the game."
     Even so, the dynamic will be different. Barger Jr. admits he draws no line between "dad" and "coach," much to the chagrin of his father.
     "I haven't always done, but I think I do at this point in time, a pretty good job of separating the two," Barger Sr. said. "I don't think he does a good job of separating the two. He sees me as being dad more so than being coach.
     "If there's a negative in the relationship, that's a negative because he doesn't respond to me telling him about an adjustment he has to make on the floor as well as I would like him do. If he did that better, I think he'd be a better ballplayer and our team would be better."
     But Barger Sr. doesn't get too hung up on that. He notes his son's 4.22 grade-point average and his place on the honor roll every semester, save one.
     "I'm very, very proud of him," he said. "He's a tremendous young man. He's respectful. He does a lot of the small things, at school, at church, that make him special."