Stew and Vicki Barber met in class at Penn State in 1960.
"We hit it off right away," she says. "And the rest is history."
Even if it wasn't history class.
"He was a senior trying to pick up easy courses," says Vicki, who was a junior. "My major was recreation – and it was a class called 'Children's Games.' "
Stewart Clair Barber would go on to play grown-man games for the Buffalo Bills. He died on June 11, three days shy of his 86th birthday. He will be remembered as a singular figure in Bills history. Consider his résumé:
• Barber protected quarterback Jack Kemp's blind side as an all-star left tackle in the days of Buffalo's AFL title teams of the mid-1960s.
• He served as the Bills' vice president for administration in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
• He was born and raised in Bradford, the Pennsylvania city that sometimes feels like an extension of Western New York. And that proximity played a part in his choosing to play for the Bills rather than the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.
"He liked the idea that his family could come to the games in Buffalo," Vicki says. "They just enjoyed that so much."
Stew Barber, born June 14, 1939, in Bradford, Pa., was a mainstay on the Bills offensive line throughout the 1960s, including the 1964 and '65 AFL championship teams. Interestingly, he spent his first season at outside linebacker, where he produced three INTs, including a pick-six. Barber served as the Bills' de facto GM from 1979-82. Here he is pictured with Bills coach Chuck Knox.
Buffalo News file photo
The Bills selected Barber in the fourth round of the AFL's 1961 draft (25th overall), and the Cowboys picked him in the third round of the NFL's draft (30th overall). The Bills made their pitch first, and Vicki says he agreed to play in Buffalo even before meeting with the Cowboys.
"His coach at Penn State said, 'Stew, you need to talk to the Cowboys, too, out of respect,' " Vicki says. "They offered him more money, but Stew said he had already committed to the Bills, and he was a man of his word."
(Side note: Penn State's coach at the time was Rip Engle; future coach Joe Paterno was then the team's backfield coach.)
The Bills offered Barber a $1,500 signing bonus and a salary of $11,000, by Vicki's recollection. He would play nine seasons for the Bills and, she says, maxed out at a salary of around $30,000. (That's roughly $263,000 in today's dollars.)
These days starting left tackles are highly paid because they protect the blind side of right-handed quarterbacks. Last year, for instance, the Bills gave Dion Dawkins a three-year extension worth roughly $60 million.
"Stew didn't talk much about" what he might have been worth in today's game, Vicki says. "I talked about it more than he did, to be honest."
She is speaking from their home in Mount Pleasant, S.C. Barber died there last week after several months in hospice care for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It is only the latest loss for a family that has suffered greatly.
Stew and Vicki had five daughters. Michelle died more than 40 years ago. Rebekah died last year. The family plans a private ceremony in coming weeks at Oakwood Cemetery, in East Aurora, for the cremains of Stew and Rebekah.
Tracy lives in East Aurora and has two daughters. Jennifer lives in Mount Pleasant and has a daughter. Alicia lives in a Mount Pleasant suburb and has a son.
"We finally got a boy," Vicki says.
Provided photo
The family legend holds that Barber got his start in football at age 12 wearing his grandmother's high-button boots. "The heels gave him traction to run faster," Vicki says, laughing. "He thought those boots really helped him."
But that was sandlot football. He wore cleats at Bradford Area High School, where he also broke the school shot put record held by his father, Arthur, an oil rigger. His mother, Jeanne, was a receptionist for a cutlery company.
Barber sometimes played both offense and defense at Penn State, but he excelled at offensive tackle. Then came the magic day in December when he and Vicki met in class. They were married the following July – and in early August he played in 1961's College All-Star game.
(The annual game, played in Chicago from 1934 to 1976, matched the defending NFL champions against a team of college seniors from the previous year; the Philadelphia Eagles beat Barber's all-stars, 28-14, in the 1961 game.)
"Otto Graham was the coach, and he told Stew, 'What a great place for a honeymoon,' " Vicki says of Evanston, Ill., where the all-stars practiced at Northwestern University. "They trained twice a day for three weeks. I didn't get to see him much."
When Barber played for the Bills, Vicki had many close friendships with the other wives. But at that College All-Star game, none of the other players were married yet.
"I had no one to go to the game with," she says. "The owner of the Cowboys found out and invited me to sit with him and his entourage. I had just turned 21, and here I was sitting with all these people, and I was kind of in awe."
Perhaps Clint Murchison Jr., then the Cowboys owner, was trying to curry favor in the hopes he might yet get to sign Barber someday.
"Oh, I think so," Vicki says. "But Stew absolutely made the right decision to go to Buffalo."
He actually played outside linebacker his rookie year and intercepted three passes, including one for a touchdown in a 21-7 win against the Broncos in Denver. But he felt out of place on defense.
"They would look at game films on Mondays," Vicki says, "and he would come home every week and say, 'Better start packing your bags. I don't think I'll be here much longer.' "
But the next season he settled in at left tackle, where he stayed for the rest of the decade. He was All-AFL in 1963 and 1964 and second-team All-AFL in 1966. He played in the AFL All-Star game five times and was named to the second team on the AFL's all-time team. He played in 125 career games, all for the Bills, and missed just one to injury.
"I'm so proud of him," Vicki says. "As a player and as a man."
Barber's last season was O.J. Simpson's first, in 1969. When Barber retired as a player, he worked in private industry before coaching in the World Football League. Then he came back to the Bills as a college scout. In 1978 he was named vice president for administration, a wide-ranging role that included player contracts. He often clashed with Bills coach Chuck Knox over those.
"He and Chuck were not the best of friends," Vicki says. "Chuck would override a lot of the things Stew wanted to do. It was almost a relief when all that was over and he didn't have to deal with that stress anymore."
Barber left the Bills in 1982 and then, as Vicki recalls, he managed properties for Paul Snyder. Not many can say they worked for Ralph Wilson when he owned the Bills and Snyder after he had owned the NBA's Buffalo Braves.
"We lived around Buffalo off and on for 20 years or so, including 16 in East Aurora," Vicki says. "Then 25 years or so ago we moved down here to Mount Pleasant."
Stew and Vicki were walking into a doctor's office there one day last year when they happened to run into a woman wearing a Bills jacket.
"I had to say, 'This is Stew Barber, he played for the Bills,' " Vicki says. "She was thrilled to meet him. Stew never would have told her. He was just a great guy, and very humble."
Barber stayed in touch over the years with his Bills linemates, who had been so good for so long, opening holes for Cookie Gilchrist and protecting Kemp.
"Stew was close with Billy Shaw, Al Bemiller and Ernie Warlick," Vicki says. "They're all gone now. I think that old offensive line is up in heaven talking about the old times."
Which brings us back to the day 65 years ago when Stew and Vicki had that meet-cute in class.
"I always get embarrassed when people ask what class it was," Vicki says. "But, you know, it wasn't basketweaving."
Nor was it history, though it changed the course of family history for a humble man who'd go on to make so much history of his own in Buffalo.
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