It takes a lot of unseen work and effort to keep a college sports program successful.
For Tony Barbone, the bare minimum was never enough.
While he worked at El Camino College for just four years, his work left a lasting impact on the college.
Barbone, who was the college’s fourth official athletics director from 2009-2013, died from a brain stem tumor Sunday, April 13. He was 71.
His memorial service will be held Saturday, June 14. The Union is told many athletic department employees will attend and pay their respects.
“He had goals and he had a vision for what El Camino athletics could be, and I think he worked hard to try and accomplish that,” women’s basketball coach Steve Shaw said.
Barbone’s work didn’t just stop in the office with making decisions and planning schedules.
He would also go out of his way to make sure that student athletes were doing well in all aspects and not just the sport they played.
“Like most people in that position that are really successful, he just loved the student athletes, you know, that’s what drove him,” Shaw said.
Barbone lived in Glendale when he took the job at ECC, but his coworker and friend Linda Olsen, Health Sciences and Athletics Division administrative assistant II, suggested he live in Manhattan Beach to be closer to the college.
Barbone took the suggestion, and lived in the city five days out of the week for the job.
“I think that’s what motivated him to do what he did […] just the impact that he knew he had on student athletes as a coach and that he sees happening with other coaches and their student athletes,” Shaw said.
During his last year as an athletic director, Barbone and Olsen made the connection of a lifetime when her mother had leukemia and she was searching for a matching blood type.
Barbone told her that he would accompany her to the hospital, and Olsen thought he had meant just for a visit.
“He went and it turned out he was a match and he went two or three times to give blood to my mother,” Olsen said. “That’s the kind of person he was, he would go out of his way to do something and make it better for someone else.”
Yet, some faculty in the athletics department still keep up practices that he put in place almost a decade and a half ago.
Shaw said there would be a monthly recruiting log that faculty kept and turned into Barbone every month.
“I thought that was interesting but it was also very helpful,” Shaw said. “It’s something that, not officially, that I kept afterwards that I kind of used as a guideline even after he left, when they weren’t required anymore.”
Barbone’s leave in 2013 was a decision that he had made for his mobility issues and family reasons, as the long distance was a growing issue for him.
“When [Tony] left I said ‘Can I keep your picture?’,” Olsen said. “Every other athletic director we’ve had, he would always tease it, ‘I was Linda’s favorite, she has me on the wall.”
