VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Bellows Falls

Basketball- athlete/coach

Inducted 2022

As a high school athlete, Jayne Barber set a Bellows Falls Union High girls basketball scoring record and later led her alma mater to five state titles in nearly three decades as its head girl's basketball coach.

Barber scored a record 1,114 points in her high school career, a mark that remained intact for 30 years. She was also a standout softball player at Bellows Falls, and went on to earn her degree down the Connecticut River at Springfield College.

After graduating from Springfield College in 1980, she came back to be the Terriers head girl’s basketball coach for 28 years, winning five state titles in eight trips to the title game while winning 369 games. Four of the state titles came in Division II, and in 2003, she directed Bellows Falls- the smallest high school to win a D-I title- to an undefeated (23-0) Division I championship season, defeating perennial power Mount Anthony in the finals, 59-43, one year after the Terriers lost to the Patriots in the title game.

Barber’s teams won six Marble Valley League championships and four Connecticut Valley League titles. She was named the MVL coach of the year six times and the CVL coach of the year five times. She received the Rawlings Award in 2003, the same year the Vermont Basketball Coaches Association named her the state’s coach of the year. She was the Vermont head coach once and an assistant coach twice for the Vermont-New Hampshire Senior All-Star game. Barber also coached field hockey, leading the Terriers to two state championships.

Barber has been inducted into four halls of fame: the Bellows Falls Union High School (1996), the New England Basketball Hall of Fame (2009), the Vermont Basketball Coaches Association (2010) and the Vermont Principals’ Association (2010).