Back In The Dugout, Back On Top

After graduating from Bridgewater College, Barry Davis coached in the Valley Baseball League with the New Market Rebels during the 1988 and 1989 seasons. More than three decades and 1,000 wins later, Davis retired after 20 years at Rider University following the 2024 season. This year, circumstances led Davis back to Rider as the "acting head coach" and his team is the No. 1 seed for the MAAC tournament.

By Steve Cox, VBL Media Relations Director

When Rider University needed a head coach to get them through the 2026 season, the Broncs didn’t have to look far.

Just one season removed from being Rider’s head coach, Dr. Barry Davis returned to coach the Broncs this season and it’s been quite the season.

Rider is 30-17 and the No. 1 seed for this week’s MAAC tournament.

Davis retired as Rider’s head coach following the 2024 season, his 20^th season at the helm of the program. He spent the 2025 season working as an assistant coach at Princeton. When Rider head coach Lee Lipinski took a leave of absence from the program, Davis was summoned back to Rider to coach the 2026 season.

The core group of Rider’s roster was very familiar with Coach Davis.

“It’s been a good year,” Davis said as his team was on the road heading to the conference tournament. “It’s a good group of guys. I recruited and coached a lot of these guys so that made the transition for me coming back somewhat easier.”

Going into this season, his 36^th as a college head coach, Davis expected the Broncs to compete at a high level. “This is an older group. There is only one player in the starting lineup that I didn’t have a hand in recruiting or coaching. I knew we would need to stay healthy, and we have. No doubt, I believed this team had a chance to be successful.”

Davis began his Hall of Fame coaching career as an assistant coach in the Valley Baseball League for the New Market Rebels where the head coach was VBL Hall of Famer Mike Bocock.

“I was a 22-year-old baseball coach, driving an old school bus up and down 81 with a bunch of players just a year or two younger than I was,” Davis recalled of his time at New Market. “I didn’t have a license to drive a bus, but that’s just how we did things back then.”

Davis spent two summers – 1988 and 1989 – coaching in New Market and the 1989 team won both the pennant and the playoffs.

In 1990, Davis landed his first head coaching job at Gloucester County College (now Rowan College of South Jersey). In 11 seasons with the program, Davis led the program to eight regional titles and four junior college national championships. He was named National Coach of the Year four times and posted a 434-109-5 record.

Davis then took the head coaching job at Georgia Southwestern State University where the winning continued. In four years, his teams posted a 137-87 record, and his 2002 squad won 49 games and was ranked No. 5 in final NAIA poll of the season.

Davis then returned to New Jersey where he spent the next 20 years as the Rider head coach.

During his 36 seasons as a head coach, Davis has won 1,084 games.

As Rider’s head coach, Davis sent numerous players to the Valley Baseball League. Ten players on this year’s squad played in the Valley League.

“I was very familiar with the Valley,” said Davis who went to high school in Albemarle County and then played baseball and graduated from Bridgewater College. “I knew the people of that area, knew the league. The Valley was always a quality league with good competition and good people. I felt like it was a place where my players could compete against quality competition and get better. Not every kid you send out for the summer works out and has a great season, but overall, the Valley League helped our kids.”

A member of five Hall of Fames, there is much more to Davis than hitting fungoes and coaching a kid’s game.

Davis earned his doctorate in Sports Leadership from Concordia University-Chicago. While he honed his leadership skills in the athletics arena, Davis is just as comfortable working with executives in a board room as he is working with baseball players on the diamond.

The same philosophy he used to build championship teams, he now takes to businesses, executives and fellow coaches – guiding them “to lead with emotional intelligence, elevate performance, and leave a lasting impact.”

This season, those leadership skills have come in handy for the veteran coach, working with a group of players who had no idea Davis would be leading them this season.

“I talk a lot about leading with emotional intelligence,” Davis said, “being aware of what’s going on around you. These players didn’t choose to be in this situation. It’s something that happened and it’s no one’s fault. I didn’t come into the situation making a lot of demands. I basically told them to do the right things – be on time, work hard and play hard when you’re on the field. It’s an older group. They adapted well.”

As a small conference in Division I baseball, the MAAC is a one-bid league. The winner of this week’s conference tournament will get the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. A trip the NCAAs would be the fifth for Davis as Rider’s head coach.

“This team has played well all season. They’ve been consistent,” Davis said. "The guys feel good about where we are and good about where we could possibly go. If we control the things we can control – play with the right attitude and play with great effort – I think we’ll be tough to beat.”

This is a one-off season for Davis at Rider. The chances of him returning are “very slim.”

But that doesn’t mean the veteran coach won’t find his way back into the dugout in the future.

“Maybe somewhere else,” Davis said about the chance of him coaching in the future. “I still love the game, love being around the players. We’ll see what happens."