From all the programs that I went through and experienced, it’s not where I'm at, but it's who you're there with.”

Spanish Fort alum Trae Barry

In the “League of Opportunity,” Spanish Fort alum Trae Barry has found his role in the often-neglected phase of the game: special teams.

Gearing up for his third season as the long snapper for the D.C. Defenders of the United Football League, Barry is among the athletes who have capitalized on professional football dreams in the revitalized spring league.

After a cup of coffee with the Arizona Cardinals ended with only a trip to rookie minicamp, Barry was unsure of the next steps in his football journey. However, thanks to the NFL Alumni Academy, he made connections and found his path.

While he got in the door, his ticket to stay came when he potentially stretched the truth about the extent of his long snapping experience to then-tight ends coach Cody Crill and ultimately general manager Von Hutchins.

“(Crill) kind of recruited me and had reached out to me and had mentioned the long snapping stuff. He asked, ‘Can you snap?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah I can snap,’” Barry recounted in a March 14 interview. “(So my friend Justin Thomas and I immediately) went to the Daphne field and I probably took like 20 snaps, 30 snaps trying to get a good clip. And I probably only got like three or four good ones, but I sent those three or four then when I went to camp, that's when the GM had mentioned to me about the snapping and being the third tight end.”

With smaller gameday rosters in the spring league, Barry mentioned that his flexibility as the new long snapper who also happens to serve as a tight end was highly valued.

“In the NFL, they have a 53-man roster but in the XFL, I think they were dressing out 42,” Barry said. “The long snapper they had was a great long snapper but with the numbers being so tight, they wanted to keep another tight end. So they said, ‘Trae if you can long snap, you can be our third tight end.’ And I was like, ‘I'm in, let's do it.’”

Barry’s time to shine

Luckily, the Defenders’ punter in his first season, Danny Whelan, matched Barry’s height of 6-foot-6 which provided a large target. Whelan went onto the NFL and has handled punting duties for the Green Bay Packers for the last two seasons.

With a big target came big punts and big opportunities for Barry to get down the field and attack the returner.

“First year snapping, I was getting down the field thanks to Dan's leg. He had over a five-second hang time on the ball, so I was able to get down the field and make some tackles. I think the first three or four games, I had about three or four tackles a game and one day as we're having a good season, I get double teamed and I thought, ‘Man this is crazy,’” Barry said. “And our coach who in the NFL said, ‘In all my years of football, I have never seen the long snapper get double teamed.’”

After a 10-2 season ended with a loss in the 2023 championship game that first season, D.C. went 4-6 and missed the playoffs last year. This season’s team goal is to be the best version of itself.

“Be the best team we can be and win every game possible. We're going to have some close games, we already know that. It's professional football and it doesn't matter what level of professional you're at, it's hard to win a football game,” Barry said. “You're getting everybody's best game in this league. We get to open up with the three-time champs so we're working extra hard in camp to make sure we come out doing what we need to do.”

Not the first position change

Barry’s adjustment to long snapping was not his first career pivot after he grew up as a quarterback only to transition into a tight end and wide receiver as a senior in high school with the Toros.

Growing up in Summerdale, Barry played in the Robertsdale City League before he started high school at Bayside Academy for his first two years. His junior year started at Escambia High School in Florida before he transferred midyear to Spanish Fort High School.

“I received my first offer to Troy going into my sophomore year as a quarterback and then my dad and I wanted to play larger-scale ball to try and get some more offers,” Barry said. “I went to Pensacola in Florida for a semester, we had family out there so we went over there. I played for only a semester there and had a decent season, I fractured my collar bone in Week 1, so I missed about six weeks of my junior season. Then when that season ended, I jumped to Spanish Fort midyear and went right into basketball season.”

After he cleared an investigation by the Alabama High School Athletic Association and was deemed eligible to play for the Toros, Barry ran into one more hurdle as he started his Spanish Fort football career.

He said he had an incident with then-Toro head coach Ben Blackmon in his first game but soon after transitioned from the pass thrower to the pass catcher. Barry blossomed into a two-star prospect and first-team all-county selection on the gridiron then went on to set track and field school records which still stand today, according to athletic.net, in the high jump (6’ 6”) and javelin (187’ 5”).

“It’s more about the people than the place.”

Although that might have looked like a rocky start, it was just what the doctor ordered for the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.

“The coach at Jacksonville State called me after and asked me how the recruitment process was going and I told him what happened,” Barry recounted. “He was like, ‘Well, we like that. We want to get you on campus.’”

When he left the campus in Jacksonville, Barry was the Gamecocks’ all-time leading receiver among tight ends, a three-time conference champion and three-time All-American. However, he said it was all credit to the coaches and leaders who lined him up for success.

“From all the programs that I went through and experienced, it’s not where I'm at, but it's who you're there with. It was the coaches that made that school great, it was the teammates and the relationships that feed into the whole aspect of football and the quality of life while you're playing,” Barry said. “I've been so blessed and grateful with so many coaches who have guided me in the right direction and have made an impact on my life in so many ways that probably they don't even know. It's more about the people than the place.”

A new family to provide for

Fast forward four and a half years later and George Michael Barry III now has a year-and-a-half-old George Michael Barry IV, as well as fiancée Kaitlyn Boyko, to provide for and is doing so through his newly acquired long snapping skills.

“Now that I’m getting better at it, I’ve walked into the role and have accepted it,” Barry said. “I feel good with it and I’m excited to long snap. It’s a good job to have, I’m lucky to be able to do this and I’m grateful for the opportunity.”

All the while, he said he couldn’t have done it without the foundational support of Mike Ebert and the Starfish 23 organization. Barry also said his time with Ebert’s travel baseball team, the Perdido Cubs, reignited his passion for playing the sport.

“(Ebert) helped me after my little incident the first game of my senior year, he helped me get going with just talking to people for me and reaching out. He got somebody to make me a highlight tape and get it sent out,” Barry said. “And he helped me bring back the love for baseball. I had kind of got burnt out on it for a little while, but he helped me bring back the love of baseball. He is just a great coach who helped me, not only in baseball, but with football and in life.”