By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

           The boss decided last summer it was time for a change at the athletics director position for Bibb County Schools.

          And Barney Hester agreed with his wife Lynn.

          So Hester told Bibb County Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones a few months ago that he was retiring as the county athletics director, effective Dec. 31.

          As tends to be the case when Hester discusses Hester, the move has been quiet. Very quiet.

          And the first public mention came from another party at a function, surprising Hester.

Howard loses coaching legend as Hester leaves to take over as Bibb County athletics director
Tattnall announces Hester’s departure
At 500 games, Hester is still in building mode

          Westside head coach Spoon Risper was talking Monday night to the Macon Touchdown Club about his team, part of the weekly routine where a Bibb County coach discusses briefly how things are going, and introduces some players and assistants.

          Risper was running through a list of coaches and people he was grateful to, and in the middle of the gym at the Methodist Home for Children and Youth on Pierce Avenue at his normal table was Hester.

          “I’d like to thank Coach Barney Hester, who is our county AD, who does a tremendous job,” Risper said. “He always supports us (as) coaches. We appreciate you.

          “Coach is going to be leaving us in December, so, that’s kind of hard for me to see him go. He’s done so much for our Bibb County public schools.”

          Risper listed a few of the accomplishments, offered another note of gratitude, and continued.

          Such was how folks found out that one of Bibb County’s sports legends is on the clock.

          After South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer was done, Hester gathered with the Bibb County high school head football coaches, all of whom were on hand, for a team picture.

          And a minute or two after that, he started to head home.

          Uh, hold on, Coach. About that little item that slipped through there?

          “I think, well, my wife made (the decision) last summer,” Hester said with a smile. “We were gonna do it one more year, so we went ahead and decided to do it Dec. 31. Felt like it was the best time as far as planning for next year, for the new guy coming in.”

          Few would argue that the 68-year-0ld has aged much – he said there are no health issues - since the end of his hall-of-fame coaching career in 2018, when folks woke up to the unexpected news that Hester had resigned as head coach and AD at Howard to become the county’s athletics director.

          That surprise came five years and a couple months after another eyebrow-raiser, that the person more associated with Tattnall than anybody was leaving to be the head coach and AD at Howard.

          Just when you think it’s quiet, here comes a Hester story.

          Hester said it was two or three months ago when he told Jones, and eventually word started creeping out, very slowly. Hester didn’t know Risper was going to say anything.

          The announcement of Hester becoming the first truly full-time athletics director in Bibb County since Raynette Evans retired at the end of the 2010-11 year after 34 years in the county was unexpected.

          Eddie Ashley took over in October of 2012 as interim, then full-time, then part-time before retiring at the end of 2017.

          Hester had a very uninspiring record of 7-24 in three seasons at Josey Academy and 9-32-1 in four seasons at Gordon-Ivey at the start of his head coaching career in 1974.

          A stint at Georgia Southern under Erk Russell followed, and he started at Tattnall as head coach in 1982.

          In 31 seasons with the Trojans, he went 306-79-7, with 19 region titles and 11 GISA state championships with only two losing seasons, 4-6-1 in 2004 and 4-8 in 2012, his final season.

          He became Howard’s third head coach in the program’s sixth season, going 18-32-1 in five seasons, leaving after a 6-5 year that included the program’s first trip to the playoffs.

          The Hesters have been married for 36 years, and own the Northside Prep Learning Center daycare, with facilities on Northside Drive and downtown. One is run by daughter Brittany and the other by daughter Thea.

          Some of the first free time Hester has had in the spring since perhaps the 1970s will be spent around six grandchildren and preparing for the appearance of a seventh.

          And whatever else the boss prepares.

         “Lynn loves the beach,” Hester said. “She wants to travel some.”

          To places with no helmets or scoreboards, but her husband will adjust.