Luckily for Courtney, Kristen and Taylor Barg, Mary Anne Barg did not implement a strict “no playing ball in the house” rule.

The trio of sisters from the Dallas area used to spend hours and hours playing indoor soccer with their father Bob, in the spacious game room of their Plano home.

All three of them point to that as a staple of their early development as soccer players, and the results are proof positive that it was a big help.

Courtney Barg has completed two quality seasons at Notre Dame, with two trips to the College Cup and a place on the TopDrawerSoccer.com Team of the Season (1st Team) this past season. Kristen Barg has signed her national letter of intent to play college soccer with Dan Abdallah’s TCU Horned Frogs beginning in the fall. Taylor Barg is an up and coming U15 starlet with a highy-regarded Dallas Texans team, the club both of her older sisters played with.

But it all started at home.

“Soccer in my house was like the only thing in my childhood. We all loved it,” Kristen said. “It was always part of things every day. We had a kickback net in the backyard and we would play soccer tennis, then we would play in the big game room. It was always Courtney and me against my dad and Taylor. We would clear everything out and play small-sided games. Playing those games with my sisters are some of my greatest memories from my childhood.”

Bob Barg remembers it well.

“We would go into the game room and play against each other,” he said. “They would try different things they’d learned on each other, or they would watch me play and figure out all the things they shouldn’t do.”

Self-deprecation aside, Bob and Mary Anne Barg are like a lot of soccer parents in that the game their daughters love was one they had never played. The Bargs grew up in Anderson, Indiana where basketball was king.

“We grew up watching basketball, it was a different sports culture,” Mary Anne said. “But we’ve both come to love it. I just really enjoy watching it. I’ll watch the women’s national team on TV, but we’ll even watch other games our girls aren’t in if we go somewhere like Disney.”

Mary Anne said she mostly declined to participate in the games, although Taylor reveals that at times during soccer tennis, Mary Anne “put on quite a show.” All three daughters credit their mom with playing an enormous role in their development via all the unheralded behind-the-scenes work involved.

Mary Anne finds all of it to be worthwhile, adding that soccer has proved to be a reliable fabric to help weave the family together.

“Without a doubt it has helped us do more together,” she said. “We’ve always tried to make some time for family vacations without soccer and we thought that was important, but we’ve gone on so many outings together around soccer. Also, it’s a common thread amongst the three of them and that has made our family even closer.

“We tried all different sports when the girls were young,” she continued. “Courtney just happened to be good at that when we first started. It’s a sport you don’t have to be that big to excel at, and it happened to be her passion. So we thought whether we wanted the other two to do the same thing and we wanted them to try something different. They were in ice skating, T-ball, basketball, dancing … but it turned out both Kristen and Taylor gravitated toward soccer too and it became their passion as well. I asked them if it was something they really wanted to do or if it was just because of their sister, and they’ve always said it was really their choice. Bob and I enjoy it too and it’s something that we’ve always been able to do together.”

For the record, both Kristen and Taylor describe Courtney as being a great role model on and off the field.

“I want to play soccer like both of them,” Taylor, a composed and skilled central midfielder, said. “We would go almost every day and hang out together and work out at Ludwig’s (area skills trainer). That was a ton of fun. I played with a lot of my friends but I always remember playing with Courtney and Kristen. Because of them I was driven to work my hardest and play to my best ability and to be a starter for my team.”

Kristen, who will likely play outside midfield or outside back in college, echoed her sister’s sentiments.

“Courtney has always been my inspiration,” she said. “She is good athletically and good at school. I strive to be like her,” she said. “Now, Taylor’s team practices before ours and Hassan (Nazari, Texans’ club director), comes over and says ‘Look at how well Taylor is playing. She’s becoming another Barg.’”

Courtney said whatever rivalry the three siblings have experienced has always been friendly.

“Honestly, I never ever felt any sort of competition with my sisters,” she said. “I know there is some sort of healthy competition, where we’re pushing each other, but I never felt it got to a point where it was ever destructive in any way to our relationships. Kristen and Taylor are completely different people but I get along with both so well. I’ve been so lucky to have those two to grow up with. We have fun with it. Kristen will poke fun at me asking if I my club team has ever won nationals like hers (they didn’t), but it’s never been malicious and if anything, brought us closer together.”

Like a lot of youth players, Kristen and Taylor had their dad as their first coach. But Bob Barg had the advantage of studying Courtney’s first coaches and applying what he learned to his younger daughters.
“I was the one who escaped,” Courtney Barg joked. “I was his guinea pig. He learned from me and my coaches and kind of took it back to Kristen and Taylor. He’s actually a good coach for not growing up playing soccer. It’s more about his dedication. “

Bob recalls his entry into coaching being one of necessity.

“When we signed Kristen up to play for the first time, none of the parents volunteered to coach so they asked me if I would want to be,” he said. “I think the only thing I had going for me is that Courtney had gone through quite a few skills sessions, so as a result of that I had observed some people who knew something about what they were doing, and I just picked up some of those skills and tried to teach them to some of the kids.  We focused on the basics, the trapping, passing, looking, creating space, just basic things young kids could pick up. And of course you always try to make it lots of fun.”

Well something must have worked because between them.  When Taylor attends the U.S. Youth Nationals with her Texans team this summer, the Bargs will have participated in 6 of the past 7 national championship events between them (not to mention the 2, someday to be 3, college scholarships.). The game room has even involved from its improvised indoor 2v2 arena origins to a true theater of dreams, where Bob, Mary Anne, Kristen and Taylor were able to watch Courtney play for the Fighting Irish on television.

So no matter what heights the three sisters from Plano reach in their respective careers, the unannounced, unwatched games in the house will always hold a special place, as Kristen notes succinctly.

“Playing with my sisters are some of the greatest memories from my childhood.”