Prof. Gary Barrette – In Memoriam
Gary Barrette was born in Niagara Falls (NY, USA) on October 29th, 1941, and passed away peacefully on August 28th, 2025, at his home in West Palm Beach (Florida, USA). Gary devoted over 50 years of his life to sports education as a graduate assistant, professor, coach, and volunteer. His interest and passion for sports were rooted in his childhood experiences in Niagara Falls youth sports, which developed into a rewarding and successful career.
Dr. Barrette earned his doctoral degree in 1977 from Columbia University, after receiving a master’s degree in 1969 from Pennsylvania State University and a B.A. from the College of Wooster, Ohio, in 1963. He began his academic and coaching career at Johns Hopkins University in 1964, where he served as Director of Physical Education and coach. In 1969, he joined the Department of Health, Physical Education & Recreation at Adelphi University (Garden City, NY, USA) as an assistant professor. He taught both theory and instructional methodology courses in the teacher education program, coached football, tennis, and golf, and was promoted to full professor and Coordinator of the Teacher/Coach Education program in 1978. Gary Barrette’s involvement with AIESEP began the same year during the AIESEP congress in Macolin (Switzerland), after co-editing the famous “What’s Going on in Gym,” a monograph presenting a large research project conducted at the Teachers College of Columbia University (New York City, USA). He returned three years later for the 1982 Boston World Convention of AIESEP and continued to bring his expertise and motivation to the association’s influence in the USA and beyond. He was coopted as an individual Board member for the 1990-1994 term and became the delegate of Adelphi University between 1994 and 1998, serving as an advisor. Prof. Barrette was inducted in 2000 as a Fellow into the Society of Fellows of AIESEP.
In 2001, after completing a distinguished 32-year professorial career at Adelphi University, he briefly served as the Dean of Academic Affairs at the United States Sports Academy and later as an adjunct professor in the Department of Exercise Science and Health Promotion at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Education from 2004 to 2016. Upon his arrival in Florida, he also served a term as an invited expert on the AIESEP Board between 2002 and 2006. After that, he attended a strategic Board meeting organized in Jupiter (Florida, USA), just before the specialist seminar in Pensacola. It is noteworthy that his attachment to AIESEP remained unwavering until the end of his fruitful life. For example, he kept in touch with the AIESEP Fellows society, attended the 2019 AIESEP International Conference organized at the university he had represented for many years, and immediately agreed to share a video for AIESEP’s 60th Anniversary #AIESEP-60 (see the website).
During the period of time he was directly involved with AIESEP, he attended approximately 25 congresses, expert meetings, or special AIESEP committee meetings, and co-directed two AIESEP congresses in Garden City: one in 1985 (“An International Dialogue on Research in Sport and Physical Education: Myths, Models, and Methods”) and one in 1998 (“World Sport Sciences Congress ‘Education for Life’”), with 420 pages of proceedings published in 1999.
Dr. Barrette was well known for his dynamic and innovative way of teaching and coaching. Throughout his career, he conducted hundreds of coach/sport/teacher education programs and workshops in the USA and abroad. His presentations consistently featured and emphasized instructional principles and creative practices that transformed basic teaching and coaching activities into dynamic, effective learning experiences. Even into his 70s and 80s, Gary remained professionally active as a youth sport education advocate and consultant in South Florida, conducting workshops and writing about critical youth sport coaching topics.
