FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The strength and conditioning room on the second floor of the Bev Lewis Center is Todd Barbour's sanctuary. It's a place where champions are made. Where he teaches his athletes to build the strength necessary to overcome any obstacle.
"This room makes them very uncomfortable," Barbour said with a laugh. "They didn't come to college to be weight lifters. They came to play softball, to play basketball or run track. This is our domain, this is normally where we see them. This is their vulnerable state."
But it was Barbour who found himself vulnerable on the morning of May 17, 2018.
"It was the down period where I'm not getting up at 5:30 in the morning so I slept it, woke up with my family," Barbour said. "I slept in with my family, woke up and felt weird. I don't know what weird is, but I just felt off."
Barbour went to work. Initially believing he could be dehydrated, Barbour drank fluids and consulted with a team doctor. It was after waking up from a nap that Barbour decided to seek treatment. It was then that things took a serious turn.
"I started to text him, or speak to text, and my speech started to go," Barbour said. "I couldn't say about five different words. And my wife said, 'Nope, we're going to Washington Regional. I think you're having a stroke."
Tests confirmed their fears. Sometime during the night, Barbour had suffered a stroke that impacted his right frontal lobe, compromising the movement in his left arm and leg.
"Basically it was just shock," said Barbour. "Like, no way, this is not me. There's no way that this happened."
The next day, Barbour had lost all feeling in his left side.
"I couldn't move my left arm at all," he said. "There was no feeling, there was no movement, it was just dead. and that was soul crushing for me."
Despite his personal struggles, four days after his stroke, Barbour was on hand to see the Arkansas softball team win their first regional in program history.
"Me and this team, we've put in five days a week almost year round. We've sweated together, we've bled together, we've just grinded it out," said Barbour of his decision to go to Bogle Park after getting out of the hospital. "They've worked so hard, and we've come so far as a team, that there was no way I was going to miss our regional. There was no way."
After the final out was made, there was only one place the team wanted to go. To the parking lot to see their strength and conditioning coach.
"I asked, look at my wife and was like, 'What are they doing?" said Barbour. "And she goes, 'They're coming out here.' I'm like, 'No, let's go. Drive away, pull away.' And she's like, 'No, I'm not going to pull away.' And then all of a sudden they're out there. I had my glasses on, thank goodness. Giving them hugs, I'm bawling, they're bawling. In the video, you just see people in the background bawling their eyes out. And they just won the first regional championship in school history. For them to come out was pretty awesome."
It's been just over nine months since Barbour suffered his stroke. He's yet to return to what he considers normal.
"I'm not really over the pity party. You know, I'm really not," said Barbour. "There's still mornings I wake up and I'm like, 'What the heck? How did this happen to me? Why me?"
As a new season begins, the softball team he taught to be strong is helping him as he continues to rebuild his own strength.
"To see them come to work every day and still be keeping a side eye on me and how I'm doing, that's a special connection that we have and it helps me come to work every day because I know I'm going to see them every single day," Barbour said.