Stadium High’s new basketball coach has plenty of experience around South Sound
A couple years ago, Jordan Barnes wasn’t sure he’d be able to continue coaching. He was experiencing constant headaches affecting the left side of his face, forcing him to step away from coaching boys basketball at Lakes High School.
Shortly thereafter, He was diagnosed with a condition called Trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic pain condition.
“Think about having a brain freeze all day long,” Barnes said.
Fortunately, he was prescribed medication and has been in the clear ever since. And Barnes, who has been coaching high school basketball for 20 years, couldn’t stay away for long. He worked as a volunteer with longtime friend Connie Richardson at Rogers last season and now is jumping back into head coaching.
“It kind of reignited me from a passion standpoint,” he said.
He was named the new boys basketball coach at Tacoma’s Stadium High School this week, replacing former coach Dominic Batten, who left for the Mount Tahoma job.
“(Batten) would always tell me how great it was there,” Barnes said. “He encouraged me to apply.”
Barnes, 40, most recently coached at Lakes after having some success as the head coach at Yelm. Prior to that, he had assistant coaching stops at Todd Beamer, Kentwood and Washington (Parkland).
At Stadium, he expects to field a scrappy young group that will play fast and embrace the underdog role.
“Scrappy, pick up (on defense) full court, utilize our athletes to the best of our ability,” he said. “We don’t have as much size, but we’re gonna play fast, have a five-out offense. … The players are hungry, want to win, have that chip on their shoulder.”
Stadium’s move to the 4A North Puget Sound League has been a strange fit for the school, which typically competed against the other Tacoma public schools in the past. But enrollment numbers bumped the school up to Class 4A during the WIAA’s last reclassification cycle and it landed in the NPSL.
It’s a league Barnes is familiar with, having coached with Kentwood coach Blake Solomon before.
“I know Blake, (Auburn coach Ryan Hansen and Tahoma coach) Rick Tripp,” he said. “I love that league. Traveling is fun, getting a different look, something different.”
Auburn, Kentwood and Tahoma figure to be floating around the top of the standings in the coming years. Barnes hopes the Tigers can crack into that top tier sooner than later.
“The players have that underdog mentality,” he said.
