Excerpts: Barnes attended baseball games at Texas when his time permitted.
Barnes not only got to see the Volunteers hoist a national championship trophy, but with one of his old friends from their days at Texas together on the coaching staff: Frank Anderson. Anderson was part of a Men’s College World Series winning team with the Longhorns in 2002, when Barnes was the head basketball coach there.
Seeing Anderson get to win another ring is just part of what made the night a special one for Barnes and all the Rocky Top faithful.
“It was — honestly being there for the national championship game was extremely special and honestly I’d been there one other time and it was at Texas,” Barnes said. “I told Frank Anderson, ‘We’re 2-for-2.’ Because Frank was the pitching coach at Texas when I was there and he won it that year. And really one of my highlights, with everything that went on, when we were getting ready to leave, I saw Frank sitting in the dugout by himself and it really touched me. He was there, everybody was gone, just sitting on the back of the bench looking back out onto the field and I got so much respect for him.”
https://www.on3.com/college/tennessee-volunteers/news/rick-barnes-calls-college-world-series-win-extremely-special/