All-First Coast boys cross country: Colin Barker

Bishop Kenny senior has an NFL pedigree, but he's built for distance running.

• BY JEFF ELLIOTT

When Colin Barker was younger, he envisioned becoming a wide receiver in football. That's not surprising because his father, Bryan Barker, was a punter for the Kansas City Chiefs when Colin was born and went on to enjoy a 16-year NFL career that included six seasons (1995-2000) with the Jaguars.

But while Colin reached his dad's height of 6-feet-2 at the end of his sophomore season, he was far behind his dad's playing weight of 202 pounds.

The Bishop Kenny student weighed just 115 pounds entering his junior season and had been much lighter than that in middle school, which is when he abandoned his dreams of playing football.

He instead devoted his time and attention to soccer and distance running.

"All through grade school and middle school, I thought I was going to be a wide receiver," Barker said. "But as I was growing in height, I wasn't filling out. When I got to high school, I stopped soccer and chose running because I felt that I could excel at that and it would carry me further."

Barker has now filled out to a still less-than-robust 150 pounds on his 6-3 frame. But that's given him the endurance to become one of the area's best runners and enabled him to match teammate Michael Wallace's feat of a year ago as the Times-Union's All-First Coast boys cross country runner of the year.