Having stepped off the city bus, a lanky, 17-year-old Scott Barker sauntered down a hallway at the University of Arizona, searching for the whereabouts of the Head Athletic Trainer. Perhaps it was the freshly sprouted peach fuzz on his upper lip that gave him the courage to go on such a quest. Maybe it was motivation wrought by a desire to choose a different career path than the one he had been on for about a month—as bus boy.
Whatever the driving force, Barker was determined to ask a question that would forever change the course of his life, and many others’.
“We had a rule in our house. If you weren’t involved in any extracurricular activities, it was time to get a job,” Barker said.
His football career was admittedly over following a loss in his senior season at Sabino High School in Tucson in the Arizona State Quarterfinals.
“There was no future for me as a 150-pound inside linebacker,” he said.
Instead, Barker found himself juking to avoid contact on a busy spring day on a sprawling college campus.
“I looked on the board on the wall with the staff directory and found that the Head Athletic Trainer was Warren Lee and he was in room 132 of McKale Center,” remembers Barker.
He walked into the bustling room and stood there, taking in all of the activity, a deer in the headlights.
“One of the students asked if he could help me. I said I was looking for Warren Lee and he pointed to a back office with the light off,” Barker said. “I learned later that was standard operation for him. I knocked on the door and he didn’t even look up. He just said ‘What?’
I walked in and introduced myself and told him: ‘I want to be an athletic trainer.’ He stopped writing, looked up at me, and asked: “Do you even know what the hell an athletic trainer is?’
“I said: ‘No. But I think I want to be one’.”
Lee proposed a plan. Barker would come every day after school and work the water crew for the entire spring. There was only one other caveat.
“I don’t really want to talk with you between now and the end of the spring season,” he told Barker. “Once it’s over we’ll talk and you’ll tell me if you like athletic training and I’ll tell you if I like you.”
Barker didn’t like it. He loved it.
Perhaps the most present and least detected member of the Chico State Department of Athletics since his arrival in 1990, and our Wildcat of the Week to kick of National Athletic Training month, Barker loves to point out the impact that one snap decision by Lee had upon his life.
“I don’t know what made him decide in that moment to give a 17-year-old with no experience a chance, but that split second decision changed the direction of my life,” Barker said. “I often think about how many opportunities we have to impact people’s lives with simple everyday decisions.”
That 17-year-old’s spirit—to walk into that athletic training room all by himself and ask for an opportunity—likely had something to do with it.
Barker’s spirit and Lee’s decision have continued to change lives ever since.
He earned his degree at the University of Arizona and stayed for graduate school, spending one year working at a local high school.
Soon after, Barker was hired at the University of Arizona, where he worked for five years. He also met his future wife, Anita Barker, and the two arrived at Chico State in 1980.
While Anita Barker went on to become the Director of Athletics, Scott created an athletic training department that is second to none in Division II on the West Coast.
“When Scott was getting into the profession, the University of Arizona was one of the hubs of developing athletic trainers. I equate it to the Bill Walsh era of athletic training,” said Devin Tacla, Chico State’s Assistant Athletic Trainer. “They all broke off into different parts of the world. Some dove into the college side of things like Scott.
“He’s an information sponge, learning from many of the founding members of the profession when athletic training was really evolving. and he brought that here. A lot of athletic trainers refer to Scott as the smartest athletic trainer you’ll ever meet. He doesn’t like it. He just says he’s doing his job. But they say it from a place of respect.”
Those smarts are an important part of what Barker brings to the table, according to Tacla. But far from the only thing.
“His knowledge base is so good in terms of evaluation, but he’s also skilled in explaining what is going on to our student-athletes and coaches,” Tacla said. “He has this great ability to sit down and talk to someone mid-stream and explain everything clearly as if he had an hour to prepare for the conversation. It’s a real gift.”
Prevention, evaluation, treatment and rehabilitation are all multi-faceted pieces of the profession, which is constantly evolving.
“If you don’t keep up to date you’re going to get left behind really quickly,” Barker says.
He is also quick to point out the importance of the mental health of each person who comes into the athletic training room.
Together, it creates a challenge that Barker lives, at least vocationally, to help solve.
“Every patient is unique and every treatment protocol is customized, taking all those factors into consideration,” Barker said. “That’s the part about my job that I love. It’s the challenge of customizing and specializing the treatment plan to that individual’s specific needs.”
Despite the 350 student-athletes walking through his door annually, Barker still loves the work.
Now and again, some 30-something sticks their head through the Acker Gym doorway and attempts to get their bearings. They find the board on the wall with the staff directory and see Scott Barker’s name. Acker Gym 149.
They dodge student-athletes hustling to class or practice on a busy spring afternoon, slowing the see all the displays of trophies, historical accomplishments, and academic achievements of Wildcats young and old.
They arrive and walk in to a room bustling with student-athletes receiving care. Barker is there, out front, working with one of them. He looks up, smiles, and greets them enthusiastically.
It’s been a long time, but Barker remembers.
They came by to simply say thank you, but wind up sitting and talking for an hour.
“The real satisfaction in doing this job is helping that student-athlete recover and getting to watch them play again,” Barker said. “It does my heart good when I have a student-athlete come back to say thank you.”
