Former PHS player takes over at WW-P North
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Jason Barry isn’t all that far removed from playing for a Mercer County Tournament golf championship. Now he gets a chance to try to coach a team to a title.
Barry, a 2006 Princeton High School graduate, is the new head coach at West Windsor-Plainsboro High North, where he takes over for Trevor Warner.
”I am enjoying it,” said Barry, who is also the head teaching pro at the Mercer County Golf Academy. “It has been a lot of fun. The last couple of years I have been involved with North a little because they practice at Mercer Oaks and I have been teaching some of the kids. I’ll see them after matches and I was teaching some of them. When Coach Warner was thinking about stepping down he asked me if I would be interested and I was.
”It’s great to be back in the CVC. We had a coaches meeting and I saw Sheryl (Severence, the Princeton coach) as well as the Lawrence coach and some others that I remember from when I played.”
Barry, who helped Princeton win a county title while in high school, enjoys every aspect of teaching and coaching golf. And in his role with the Knights, he’ll have the opportunity to do both.
”I consider myself more of a coach than a golf instructor,” Barry said. “I have my people I teach who are 50 or 60 as well as 4. From a coaching aspect, I like to deal a lot with course management and the short game.”
Barry takes over a team at WW-P North that will be looking to replace two of the school’s top players in Charles Cai and Ryan Siegler, both of whom are now playing at the college level.
”Replacing Charles and Ryan will be very hard because they were shooting under par every round,” Barry said. “Charles is one of smartest players I have been around and Ryan is one of the most physically talented guys I have seen. This year we have a group of guys that love the game and are solid and want to get better. If they play well they can shoot around par. We’re solid.”
While the weather has not been great to start this season, Barry has welcomed the opportunity to work with the players on every aspect of the game.
”I was working with a lot of these kids last year and the year before and we were talking a lot about developing their short games,” Barry said. “It has been a brutal preseason as far as weather, but we have been practicing in the weather to get ready. We have been doing a lot of short game stuff to minimize mistakes and I think when we get out on the course consistently we’ll be really excited.
”They were out there in the 45 degree weather with 20 mile per hour winds. On the days when the weather was a little better, the kids felt like it didn’t seem that hard because they have been out in bad weather. So when it is half decent, the weather seems better.”
For a first-year high school coach, Barry brings a wealth of experience and is quite excited about what the season may bring.
”It is going well,” he said. “I was down in Florida working a little bit in the winter, but I am back here now. I am doing lessons and trying to write some instructional articles. I have also been going to seminars. I feel like the coaching thing is right up my alley.”

