When New York Giants running back Tiki Barber announced that he would retire following the 2006 regular season, it came as a surprise to many. After all, Barber had appeared to reach his prime and was dominating the league, rushing for over 1,800 yards in 2005 and over 1,600 yards in 2006.
But behind-the-scenes, a war was brewing between Barber and then-head coach Tom Coughlin, who was still in his overbearing disciplinarian phase.
At the time, even future Hall of Fame defensive end Michael Strahan was pondering retirement due to Coughlin military-like style.
Strahan returned, but Barber did not. And the running back wasn’t shy about placing the blame for his early retirement on Coughlin, while also taking shots at young quarterback Eli Manning.
In the years since then, Barber has publicly apologized to Manning and buried the hatchet with the Giants. And on Sunday, he also revealed that Coughlin wasn’t the only reason he decided to walk away from the game of football.
“I mean, Tom was such a small part of it,” Barber said during an appearance on the Scoop B Radio Podcast. “He was so hard on everybody and you felt unappreciated at times, but it was so much more than that. Maybe he was the last little straw that made me walk away from the game, but physically I was getting beat up, man.
“It would take me until Thursday to feel good again. I was getting massages on Monday and acupuncture. I would get this ART treatment and then another massage on Thursday, and then now I’m feeling all right on Friday. [Then we’d have] like a walkthrough practice and then you get beat up again and it starts over. And it was just getting hard.”
Still, the combination of Coughlin’s overbearing nature and the physical toll being taken on Barber’s body weren’t the be all, end all when it came to retiring. Rather, a third factor weighed in.
“These experiences that were happening to me were just capturing my attention. [Like] going to Israel on the request of the late Shimon Peres and visiting the Knesset. It was a surreal world that I was living in,” Barber said. “I was working at FOX News at the time and I met Tony Snow, who was the House Press Secretary. [He] introduced me to Condoleezza Rice and I had lunch with Condi Rice when she was Secretary of State Department.
“All these things are just becoming more interesting to me than grinding. Being in the circle, developing relationships that were going to be so much more beneficial to me once I retired than being a football player. Now I love being an NFL athlete. I loved doing it in New York and having success in New York because it granted me access to a rarified circle like these billionaires and hedge fund managers and the society in New York.
“I mean, I had no business belonging but because I was a good football player, I had access to it and I was able to develop and create a lot of relationships. And so, it’s come to the point that I want to explore this. I mean, football’s great, but I want to explore this. And it became more important and that’s why I walked away.”
In 2011, five years after he initially retired, Barber filed paperwork to come out of retirement, but the second wave of his football career never materialized.
Currently, Barber is a radio host for CBS Sports Radio with Brandon Tierney — “Tiki & Tierney” — which is nationally broadcast every weekday afternoon from 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. ET.
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