Deb Baber wants to postpone talking about life after coaching basketball.

The Westside girls head coach, however, knows retirement is rapidly approaching. The 58-year-old will retire after this season, which could end as early as Friday when her Seminoles travel to Westover for the first round of the GHSA Class AAA tournament.

“I’m not going to think about it being over until after (the season ends),” she said. “I’m thinking about it not being the last game.”

Regardless of whether or not that final game comes in Friday or a few weeks later in the Final Four at the Macon Coliseum or somewhere in between, Baber will leave Westside with one of the most impressive and unique coaching résumés in Middle Georgia history.

The Seminoles advanced to two Final Fours under Baber, including a run to the state championship game in 2005, when they lost to Etowah. They made the playoffs in eight of the past nine seasons and won 20 or more games six times since 2004.

“She’s a bulldog out there, a heck of a competitor,” former Westside athletics director and football head coach Robert Davis said.

“She did a great job, putting our program on the map.”

Baber’s road to glory at Westside was anything but a straight one. When she took over the basketball program when the school opened, Baber hadn’t coached basketball in 17 years. As a 44-year-old at the time, Baber felt like one of the oldest “rookies” in coaching.

“You step away from something for so long, you kind of need to relearn things,” Baber said. “I was a novice.”

Baber had success, however, as a young coach.

Following her graduation from Augusta State, Baber took over the Butler girls team in her native Augusta as a 23-year-old. The Bulldogs won three games the year before she took over, but they were in the Final Four in the second year, losing to South Gwinnett on a last-second basket. She spent three years at Butler, one at a school in Minnesota and one at Evans.

Baber wanted to start work on a doctorate degree at Georgia, so she left basketball coaching at 28. After earning the degree in adult fitness, Baber moved on to Valdosta State, where she coached softball, and then Kennesaw State before landing a job in the wellness program with the Bibb County board of education. She went to Fort Valley State for two years before Westside opened and needed a girls basketball coach.

“I was content with the path I took,” Baber said. “It was a very rewarding path. But I would go to games at the Coliseum, and I just started salivating. I wanted to get back into it.”

Baber was a marathon runner, competing multiple times in the Boston Marathon and Peachtree Road Race, so she wouldn’t shy away from the hard work needed to start a program. She pulled out her notes from her years at Butler. She attended coaching clinics, watched videos and read coaching books to brush up on anything she lost or forgot from the long coaching layoff.

Baber and Westside didn’t have it easy from the start, getting thrown into competition with established programs such as Baldwin, Northeast, Southwest and Warner Robins.

“We had an uphill battle, and I was very nervous at the start,” Baber said. “We were just praying for a win somewhere along the way.”

The Seminoles went 5-18 the first year, but Baber cited players such as Kristy McCorkle, who now helps coach alongside Baber, and Joy Jones for putting in the hard work that set the Seminoles in the right direction. They won 15 games the second year and 18 a year later.

“From that point on, we were pretty successful,” Baber said. “There was something about the first group. They came in and were ready to work. They really made it happen. They set the bar high.”

Players such as Ashley Duhart, L’Teisha Holloway, Jelisa Caldwell and Brittany Ferguson helped take the program to another level and then made sure it maintained an elite status, Baber said.

Baber, who is 341-169 in her career, said she just now feels like it’s the right time to step away. She believes the program is in good shape now, with a good group of sophomores returning to hand it off to someone else. Baber thinks current assistant Candice Roberson should get the job.

“I think she would do a great job,” Baber said. “She’s young, has a lot of energy. She should do fine. I feel good about where we are as a program. I just hope I have a few more weeks of coaching left.”

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With retirement looming, Baber concentrates on playoffs