Football, Basketball, Flag Football
Favorite athlete: Tyrese Maxey
Favorite team: Penn State
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing in a Christmas tournament in Tampa, FL last season.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time we were playing at home wearing white jerseys, and I accidentally yelled "Let’s go blue!" really loud (the other team was wearing blue).
Music on playlist: Country
Future plans: Study communication sciences and disorders at Penn State Main Campus.
Words to live by: “Control what you can control.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel to at least two more countries.
One thing people don’t know about me: I really love to cook.
By Mary Jane Souder
Hunter Barno has a fascinating high school sports resume.
The Central Bucks East senior will graduate with eight varsity letters – two in basketball, one in flag football (pending when it becomes a varsity sport this spring) and five in football.
Yes, football.
Turns out Barno was the manager of East’s football team since she was in seventh grade, and her title of manager should not be confused with those whose responsibilities begin and end with making sure the players are hydrated.
“She’s not a water girl at all,” East football coach John Donnelly said. “There’s a lot of different hats you have to wear.
“To step into that role in middle school and to carry it through was no small chore, and she did it with flying colors because it’s a big operation. She had a lot of responsibility, and she handled it really well. She was a one-person show, and she did the job that I think a half dozen to a dozen people would do at a high school.”
There is no offseason for Barno, whose winters are filled with basketball. Nothing unusual about that except that some would have walked away after playing JV as a junior and then seeing limited playing time as a senior, something she knew before entering her final high school season that saw the Patriots capture the SOL Colonial Division title and advance to the PIAA 6A State Tournament.
“Honestly, people ask me at school – is it difficult?” Barno said. “No, because I’m just so proud of the rest of the girls on the team, I’m so happy for them.
“Being able to watch them go out there and do their thing, just being able to play my role – my family says this, and coach Liz (Potash) says it too sometimes – control what you can control. Work your hardest and just try to lift everybody else up.
“I’m not going to sit on the bench on game day and say, ‘Oh gosh, I’m so mad about this, so mad about not playing in the game.’ No, I want to cheer my girls, I want to make sure they have the energy to go out there and beat up on teams. They’ve been doing so good, and it’s so much fun to be there.”
Barno is not only a breath of fresh air but also a valued member of the team.
“There have been kids I have come across over the years, and Ron (Chiarolanza), my assistant coach, calls them program kids,” East coach Liz Potash said. “But Hunter is our quintessential program kid. She’s just one of these kids that every program would be lucky to have.
“She works incredibly hard. She is fully dedicated and committed, and she really just has a good sense of what is best for the team even if it’s not necessarily her minutes on the floor. She is supportive, she is literally the epitome of a team player. I don’t know how many kids are like that anymore. I don’t know how many kids put four years into a program and are happy just to be a part of it.”
But there’s more to it than that, according to her coach.
“She pushes us at practice every day,” Potash said. “She definitely has nice pieces of her game, and for us, it’s invaluable to have someone like that because of the impact on the younger kids. Nowadays – kids if they’re not on varsity by sophomore year, they seem to be so upset about it. That was never Hunter. She played jayvee through last year as a junior.
“It's incredible. You talk about committed. Her family spends the summers in Florida, and for the last two years, they have flown her up from Florida just so she can work our community basketball camp. I’ve told them numerous time – you don’t have to do that. Her dad’s a football coach, and he also coaches middle school sports. They get it. That’s unbelievable. You don’t get that commitment level all the time, and obviously, she gets that from home but that’s within her too.”
Back to the beginning
Barno grew up in a family that loved sports. Both of her parents – Tim and Marie Barno – competed in high school sports, and it’s been part of Hunter’s life as long as she can remember.
“I started playing basketball in kindergarten – the earliest I could with CBAA,” she said. “I was playing intramurals and then my dad started coaching my travel team in fourth grade.
“I pretty much just played basketball my whole life. I played one year field hockey, two or three years of softball and kindergarten soccer, trying everything out, but ultimately, basketball is what really stuck with me.”
Potash has known Barno since she was in elementary school and attended summer camps.
“I remember there was a time she was thinking of stopping basketball – she was in fifth or sixth grade,” Potash said. “We sat there and talked about it, and I just said, ‘Hey, as long as you’re having fun, you should play. When you’re not, you shouldn’t.’ From then on, she never stopped playing.”
And listening to Barno tell it, she never stopped having fun.
“I just love what a team sport basketball is,” she said. “It just always clicked the most. It was what I had the most fun with, and I met some of my best friends through it.
“It’s just always what I connected with the most, and having my dad there to coach me was really nice – I got quality time with him.”
Barno has never tired of the practices, and she laughed when she recalled a recent practice where she played the role of Perkiomen Valley’s 6-3 center Quinn Boettinger, who is committed to continue her career at the United States Naval Academy.
“We were preparing for our Perk Valley game, and I was in there – Jess Lockwood was practicing fronting me,” said Barno, who measures in at 5-7. “We have preseason meetings, and (coach Potash) always tells me she really appreciates me being there for the rest of the girls, just knowing my role and being okay with being there.”
Not your ordinary manager
CB East football coach John Donnelly has known Hunter Barno almost her whole life.
“She grew up in the neighborhood,” he said. “Our families are close. They spend a lot of time down here in our backyard and vice versa.”
When the veteran coach was looking to fill the shoes of his manager who was leaving the area, he reached out to Barno, whose father is on his coaching staff.
“We grew up Eagles fans,” she said. “We also happened to be neighbors and really good family friends with head coach John Donnelly. He was like, ‘Do you want to try it out?’ I said, ‘Why not?’
“I’d be there for games and go to two or three practices a week. I was mostly helping out with the equipment, doing the water. We have this really big tank that I take out to the field, and I make sure everything is filled up at every station because they do a ton of station work.”
And what was it like as a seventh grader on the sidelines?
“It was intimidating, absolutely,” Barno said. “It was really nice having the other girl and boy (managers) there. They were super awesome, they were super welcoming, showing me the ropes.
“But me being this tiny little seventh grader and being around these giant senior players, it was kind of insane. Honestly, the whole team was super welcoming. Everyone knew – this was the coach’s daughter, so everybody was really great.”
Barno’s responsibilities grew after that introductory year. As an eighth grader, she shared the tasks with a senior boy
“From ninth grade on, I was on my own managing the whole football team, and I loved it,” she said. “I also filmed. I would go up in the stands in the stadium and film the practices when they scrimmaged.
“We used to have an iPad from seventh grade to my sophomore year. Then we got a drone. I had to learn to fly a drone and record our practices when we scrimmage. I was simultaneously bringing the water out to the guys and filming at the same time. It got pretty crazy.”
‘The tech side of it was really big,” Donnelly said. “We film big portions of our practices, and she was instrumental in that.
“Football is a year-round commitment for our players, and we asked a lot of her as well.’
Game days she travelled with the team.
“I would get to school and make sure we had everything – we bring four six-packs of Gatorade, we bring two really big coolers full of water and ice,” Barno said. “I also helped out our trainers, making sure they have ice and the medical equipment they need to bring on the bus.
“I make sure everything is in the right spot, make sure everything gets on the bus, and then I take the bus with the team to wherever we’re going. When we’re at home, I just make sure everything gets out on the field.”
Barno has her own football jersey and has been 26, 27 19 and this past season 44.
“I actually got my first varsity letter in eighth grade,” she said. “I’m a five-year letter winner in football which is kind of crazy.”
Senior Night Barno was recognized along with the senior players, and she was seated with the seniors at the banquet this year.
“I got my jersey with my last name on it,” she said. “They really do treat me like I’m part of the team, I’m one of the guys out there. It’s really cool.”
The girl that is contemplating following in Barno’s role trained under the veteran manager last fall.
“We have her come and train just to get an idea what it’s like and if it’s something she really wanted to pursue because I think it’s harder to fill that position than it was 20 years ago for all the things that we would want that person to do,” Donnelly said. “Not everyone wants to make that kind of sacrifice, but she did, and she did it really well.
“It was nice for her to be there with her dad, who is one of the coaches on the staff. Her brother is the ball boy, so the Barnos are around the football program in some way shape or form since 2016.”
*****
This fall, Barno will be enrolling at Penn State University where she plans to major in communications sciences and disorders.
“It’s basically speech pathology,” she said. “My goal is to eventually work in some sort of pediatric setting, probably in an elementary school as a speech therapist.”
With parents that are both teachers – her mother in elementary school and her father in middle school, Barno is familiar with how the school system works.
“I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher,” she said. “That never really interested me, but I still wanted to work with kids and help kids out in some way.
“My parents are both friends with the speech pathologists at their school. Just a few weeks ago, I went to one of the elementary schools in our school district and shadowed the speech therapist there half a day, and I just absolutely loved it. It just really connected with me. I really liked the way they’re able to help, working one-on-one with kids and really make an impact in their development.”
An outstanding student, Barno, who has taken a courseload of honors and numerous AP classes, is a member of the National Honor Society.
Away from school, she is a youth ambassador with Bucks for Kids. She also has worked with Penn Athletics as a coach.
As for her future in football, Barno is playing for East’s flag football team this spring, and according to her coach, she could potentially have a future as a manger next year in Happy Valley.
“She had a lot of responsibility, and she handled it really well,” Donnelly said. “It might be something she looks to do at the next level – there are some opportunities there. We’ll see if she decides to go down that route. We were fortunate to have her here as long as we did. There are big shoes to fill.”
Barno has not ruled out the possibility of working as a manager.
“It is an option,” she said. “I don’t really know what it entails. I’m considering it, but I think I want to have the experience of being a college student and being able to go to the games with friends, tailgate and all that because I never got that in high school.
“Thinking back on it, it’s really weird, I never was in the student section for a football game ever.”
Whatever she opts to do, Barno, according to her coach, will be a welcome addition to any setting.
“You don’t find kids like Hunter anymore,” Potash said. “I wish there were more of them. I wish we had one on the team every year.
“We’re losing Syd (Ralph), a starter, and Savannah (Hayes) is a key player, I know most people aren’t going to look at us and say that we’re not returning Hunter, but I will. It really matters to me and to the program. I can’t express our appreciation enough for her commitment and dedication for the last four years. It’s noteworthy because I don’t think it’s the norm anymore.
“The other thing I will give her a lot of credit for is we have a lot of honest conversations with our kids about playing time, and she’s always been spot on with where her talent is and where her level is, fully recognizing when there are kids more talented ahead of her, and again, that’s not common anymore.
“A lot of kids don’t see that. It’s so appreciated. I probably don’t tell her enough how much we appreciate her. We need more Hunter Barnos in school sports, and I think if we had them, we’d have a lot less problems.”
