Mike Barber (tight end)
| Date of birth | June 4, 1953 |
|---|---|
| Place of birth | Marshall, Texas |
| Career information | |
| Position(s) | Tight End |
| College | Louisiana Tech |
| NFL draft | 1976 / Round: 2/ Pick 48 |
| Career history | |
| As player | |
| 1976–1981 | Houston Oilers |
| 1981–1985 | Los Angeles Rams |
| 1985 | Denver Broncos |
| Career highlights and awards | |
| Awards | Louisiana Tech Athletic Hall of Fame (1995) |
| Career stats | |
|
|
Mike Barber (born June 4, 1953 in Marshall, Texas) is the leader of Mike Barber Ministries, a religious charity with which he and his wife DeAnne engage in a full-time, nationwide prison ministry, and which they began in 1987. On his television program PRO-Claim, shown on Trinity Broadcasting Network, his wife sings, as he holds services and ministers to inmates in their cells.
Barber attended White Oak High School, where he played Quarterback, passing for over 4,000 yards, and graduated in 1972. He then attended Louisiana Tech where he was converted to Tight end. He was selected in the second round of 1976 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers. He played for the Oilers for six years, and then finished his career playing four years for the Los Angeles Rams. He then retired to work in ministry.
During the mid-1990s, Mike returned to football, of sorts, when he took a voluntary coaching position at Trinity Christian School in Cedar Hill, Texas. He coached for two years with Trinity, and then left amid a minor dispute to join Arlington's Grace Prep Academy, where he coached or was involved with coaching between 1998 and 2005.
Grace Prep was successful while Barber was the coach (in various guises, including head coach); during his eight-year tenure there, the team had a winning record every season, and won the State Championship in their division five of those years. However, he was suspended for a year in 2001, and was fired from the Head coaching position in May 2006 after a dispute with school administrators. He has since focused his efforts on his ministry.
While associated with the Grace Prep football program, Barber was given "one of the sternest sanctions ever administered" by the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools. According to TAPPS, he had offered athletes "improper inducements". He was suspended from coaching for a year, and the school's program placed on three years' probation.
Because several prominent players transferred to Grace Prep along with Barber (for some of whom he was accused of improperly paying tuition, a claim he denies), TAPPS instituted what is informally known as "The Mike Barber Rule": players who follow a coach to another school are ineligible from playing for a year.
...
Wikipedia