Sep 27, 2014 4 min read

As a youngster, all Jason Barr wanted to do was play football.

“I started to play when I was five,” Barr said. “I was anxious to play. Even in practice I just wanted to play and not watch.”

After Barr started playing football, it was hard for opponents to stop him. As a running back at McGuffey High School and Washington & Jefferson College, Barr put up some record-breaking totals, becoming one of the most prolific rushers in WPIAL and Presidents’ Athletic Conference history.

Barr’s career at McGuffey didn’t exactly start with a hint of future greatness. In ninth grade, he was a blocking back. As a sophomore, Barr shared the football with three other talented runners.

“My sophomore year, we had lot of talent in the backfield. Three of us broke 1,000 yards and a fourth rushed for over 900 yards,” Barr recalled.

During Barr’s senior year, the Highlanders got off to a lousy start.

“We lost the first two games, then we went on a run. Nobody could stop us. After those two losses, we started to jell and played well as a team.”

Of course, that team was powered by the legs of one of the best running backs in WPIAL history. Barr helped the Highlanders gain the respect that was long overdue at McGuffey. The Highlanders advanced to the WPIAL championship game at Three River Stadium in his senior year of 1993. Barr rushed for 225 yards in the Highlanders’ win over Mt. Pleasant in the semifinals.

The ultimate team player, Barr recorded some amazing statistics and won a lot of honors at McGuffey. He was named all-conference four times (1990-1993) and rushed for 5,749 yards. At the time, he was second on the WPIAL’s all-time rushing list.

Barr was a three-sport letterman, in football, wrestling and track, at McGuffey. He was an excellent wrestler with 128 wins and only 13 losses. He qualified for the state tournament three times.

Barr’s college football career took a few unexpected turns.

“I was ready to go to Penn State, where I was offered a scholarship. At the last second, it was pulled from me,” he said. “Because it was late in the recruiting process, schools like Pitt, Boston College, WVU and Syracuse had backed off. It was not a good situation.”

That’s when Charleston Southern, a I-AA school in South Carolina, entered the picture. Barr signed a letter of intent and headed south for a season.

“Not good,” Barr said. “I didn’t feel at home. I was not comfortable at all.”

Barr was uncomfortable in more ways than one. He broke his leg in a non-contact drill during practice. It was not an ordinary break.

“It was bad. I was on bed rest for two months,” Barr recalled. “It was hard because I was young and doctors in Charleston told me I was done and couldn’t play football any more.”

Unhappy and injured, Barr was determined to play again and decided to transfer from Charleston Southern and return home to attend Washington & Jefferson.

“I was rehabbing at W&J. I really liked the facilities. I sought the coaches. They were not seeking me,” he explained.

“I got to meet (coach) John Luckhardt and one of his assistant coaches, John Banaczak. They were two top-notch guys.”

For four years, Barr helped lead the Presidents to a lot victories.

“He was a tremendous athlete,” Luckhardt said, “and even better away from the playing field. He was everything a coach wanted from a player as far as leadership and talent. Jason was special.

“We were lucky to have outstanding running backs, like A.J Pagano, Chris Babirad and Jason.”

Barr could have had a scholarship as a wrestler.

“I liked wrestling until my sophomore year. I lost interest. I continued to wrestle but I wanted to play football. My junior year, I was getting a lot of recruiting letters. I told my dad to throw them away.”

His father, Jim, had a solid wrestling career at Trinity.

But he didn’t try to steer his son into that sport.

“No, my dad did not push me either way. He was going crazy with the mail and telephone calls coming on a daily basis. He had to add another telephone line to the house,” Jason Barr said.

Barr is a hydraulic engineer in the tri-state area. He was inducted into the Washington-Greene Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.

Bill DiFabio writes a bi-weekly column on local sports history.