SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — After a championship loss two years ago, the Centralia lady panthers softball team finally got their hands on the class 3a state championship trophy.
In the stands for the four-nothing shutout of Oak Grove, was Billy Barnes, 60, yelling and shaking a cowbell to rally the sea of fans clad in black and white.
Barnes had traveled with the team to nearly every game this year and even paid for their hotel rooms during a tournament in Warrensburg earlier in the season.
“I had confidence in them all year, I know they could do it,” Barnes said.
Barnes became a staple of the Centralia softball program over the last two seasons as his granddaughters, Deztyni and Triztyn Tinker, joined the program.
However, over the course of the last two seasons, Barnes has taken the whole squad under his wing.
“I can’t be no more prouder of them than what I am,” Barnes said. “Not just my granddaughters, but all the girls.”
Like any doting grandparent, Barnes absolutely spoils the girls. Before every game, he provides them with coolers full of water and sports drinks, pickle pops for muscle cramps and snack sticks he and his wife make at her meat packing facility in Centralia.
His granddaughter Triztyn said the advice Barnes gives them before their games has become even more important than the food and drink.
“Before the games he comes over to our dugout and he goes ‘you guys got this, try your best like you always do.’ And he always adds the ‘like you always do’ to make sure we know that we always make him proud of us,” Triztyn said.
Centralia Coach Elizabeth Bostick said the level of support Barnes has provided makes a difference, especially going into a high-pressure post-season game.
“When you know you have a strong foundation, or somebody that’s gonna support behind you, it makes it a little bit easier. It takes that little bit of edge off,” Bostick said.
Senior Havyn Henry agreed and said Barnes’ presence is always felt at the field.
“He’s always the motivator here when maybe not a lot of other people are cheering, you can always hear Billy and count on him to kind of be that person,” Henry said.
Barnes said he gets as much as he gives from both the team and their parents.
He said the girls wrote letters to him last year thanking him for what he does for the team. Other parents and grandparents of the team pitch in occasionally to help keep his snack supply stocked.
“They donate to me and help me just as much as I do to them,” Barnes said.
Syracuse University communications professor Anne Osborne studies fandom and said this reciprocal relationship is common.
“Being a part of a fan group really ties you to others and then it deepens into a sense of your personal identity,” Osborne said.
She said that in return, fans get more than just bragging rights over a record or an extra weekend plan, they gain a sense of belonging and community.
“That’s really fulfilling, at the end of the day we’re all pack animals, we all want to be accepted into groups, and so, we get a lot out of our fandom,” Osborne said.
As the Lady Panthers took the field, some for the last time, to gather their first place trophy, it wasn’t hard to find Barnes in the crowd — the same way it’d been easy to find him all season.
Hands in the air, ringing a cowbell he had been clinging to throughout the game, Barnes whooped as loudly for the girls as he had during the first inning.
Just as it was some players' last hurrah, so was it Barnes’ - until next fall.
