Columbus Crew Stadium and Ohio Stadium, home of the Ohio State University Buckeyes, are a mere two miles apart, but for Devin Barclay it might as well be the distant between the Earth and the moon.
The last many soccer people saw of the former teenage whiz kid was in a Columbus Crew uniform, finishing his Major League Soccer career in 2005.
Done and gone at age 22. That's what many thought of Barclay after the last of four professional stops that began five years earlier as a teenager with the long-gone Tampa Bay Mutiny.
Fast forward to Saturday evening in Columbus when Barclay, a junior walk-on football player, is ready to kick a 39-yard field goal to not only beat Iowa but give the Buckeyes at least a share of the Big Ten title and their first trip the Rose Bowl since 1996.
Actually, fast is not the operative word. Call it a long and winding route from Major League Soccer to one of the most storied programs in the country.
"It's a crazy path. My parents were kind of laughing about it. There's so many different roads I had to take to get here," Barclay said Monday ahead of what's known in Columbus simply as "Michigan Week," as the Buckeyes prepare to face their bitter rivals in Ann Arbor on Saturday.
Barclay nailed the kick through the middle of the uprights in the closed end of the stadium for a 27-24 overtime victory. As he did when he scored a goal in soccer, Barclay took off running from his teammates but was quickly engulfed by them and a swarm of fans.
This being Columbus and him now a hero, Barclay's life changed quickly even if he wasn't aware of it. The video of his kick was posted on his Wikipedia page an hour after the game and had received thousands of hits. A Google search of his name revealed more than 2.5 million results today.
The reach of Ohio State football goes beyond the borders.
"I got a text from Chad Marshall saying congratulations," Barclay said of the Crew and U.S. defender. "He was watching the game in Slovakia (after the U.S. national team's friendly there earlier in the day). He was a really good friend of mine when I played here and I heard from (former Crew forward) Dante Washington and a lot of people I was close with when I was here that I had lost contact with over the years. It's really cool to hear from those guys."
The typical reaction?
"A lot of my soccer friends are still in shock that I made that transition because usually it happens a lot earlier like in high school. I just did it a little bit later," Barclay said.
So, how did the 26-year-old Annapolis, Md., native wind up as the top kicker for a top-10 team? Happenstance as much as anything.
Barclay was 17 when he signed with MLS as a Project-40 player as part of the league's development program. He was assigned to Tampa Bay but did not count against the roster or salary cap and was given funds to be used for a college education.
He had three goals and two assists in 23 games (12 starts) for the Mutiny in 2001. He had his own place to live and thought he would be enjoying the Florida sunshine for years. However, the league disbanded the team and he was acquired by San Jose in the dispersal draft.
His career never took off partly because of a series of injuries that robbed him of experience and the desire to continue in the sport he had played since he was a boy.
Barclay played just 321 minutes in 2002, was dealt to D.C. United the next season but missed much of the year after injuring his left foot in April. He appeared in three matches (no points) before undergoing surgery in August. He also had surgery on his shoulder in December.
The Crew traded for him in 2004 but he played only three games with one start before suffering a stress fracture in his right foot late in the season. The next season was even worse. Barclay separated his shoulder during a reserve match in the first month of the season and played just 19 minutes.
That was it as far as soccer.
"I had been in four different places in five years. I had a lot of injuries that set me back. It had been five years and the Project-40 contract was up," Barclay said. "I knew Columbus wasn't going to extend my stay here. I thought it made more sense to go to college at that point."
After being waived by the Crew, he decided to attend a branch of Ohio State in nearby Delaware, Ohio.
"I had to relearn everything because I had been out of school so long," he said. "Then I had to take the ACTs and go through that then go through the branch campus to get a GPA. I had to spend a quarter at the Delaware center."
Overcoming obstacles was nothing new. He was diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder at age 7 and was put on the drug Ritalin -- a stimulant medication that helped him sit still in class. He took it but didn't feel right and eight years later decided he had enough.
"I had been on Ritalin my whole life and I just ended up getting off Ritalin and realizing I had to do the work," Barclay said. "Pretty plain and simple when I was in high school I didn't do the work I should have (when on Ritalin). I started doing the readings and wasn't taking shortcuts."
He got his high school diploma after being home-schooled by his mother, Liz, and never considered furthering his education until his soccer playing days were over.
While still with the Crew he was a dating a girl whose younger brother, Garrett Hummel, played high school football in Shelby, Ohio.
Hummel piqued Barclay's interest in placekicking and the pair used to jump the fence at the high school to practice. The biggest adjustment is getting quick height on a football after so many years after directing the ball low and hard on set pieces.
"It's a change of a dream when I made the transition from soccer to football," Barclay said. "It's a different type of kicking. It's something I like to do. Within the first week of kicking field goals I was like, 'I love this. This is fun and I think I can be good at it.' That's how the dream changed."
Barclay also got help from Jim Schmidtke, who runs the Athletes in Action ministry for the Crew and OSU football. He put Barclay in touch with several former Ohio State kickers and produced a video of Barclay's work to be shown the coaching staff.
"Jim played a very pivotal role in the sense that he helped me believe it was possible then got me in touch with the compliance guys to get that started," Barclay said.
"Devin has really done a lot of hard work to get to where he is today. It's pretty remarkable to see where he's come from and what he's done," Schmidtke said.
OSU head coach Jim Tressel eventually took notice of Barclay and gave him a spot on the team, albeit as the third-string kicker.
"He may have liked the fact that we were senior citizen friendly," Tressel said. "We had Ryan Pretorius before him."
Barclay last season was behind Pretorius, a 29-year-old former pro rugby player from South Africa, and Aaron Pettrey. As a junior this year, Barclay moved up to No. 2 behind the senior Pettrey but didn't expect to see any game action.
However, Pettrey tore a ligament in his right knee against New Mexico State on Oct. 31 and is out for the season. Barclay finished out the game and made all three extra points. He missed field goals from 47 and 36 yards with a successful 29-yarder in between.
To date, he has made all nine extra points and converted 4 of 7 field goals. The winner against Iowa was his longest. He has also kicked off 16 times.
"He's handled it pretty well," wide receiver Dane Sanzenbacher said. "He's one of the older guys on the team so he's going to take a mature approach to it."
Barclay is not the same person physically or emotionally as soccer fans might remember him.
"I still had the build of a soccer player when I came here then I put on a little weight -- about 30 to 40 pounds," he said. "It's a totally different type of conditioning. The real difficult part about it was learning to lift the weights and do all the strength and conditioning."
He's two classes away from a degree in sports and leisure management (exercise science track) but will take post-graduate classes to be eligible next season.
His father, David, a Division III soccer All-American at Kenyon (Ohio) College, is more excited about seeing his son graduate than kicking a winning field goal.
"When I signed a contract to play soccer I'm pretty sure me and my dad thought there was a no chance I would ever get to college. That's the thing he's most proud about," Barclay said.
One thing hasn't changed for Barclay, though.
"I don't play soccer anymore but I love it," he said, citing Manchester United, Real Madrid and Barcelona as his favorite teams. "I watch all the time. I watch Fox Soccer Channel at night and Sky Sports News and all those British highlights."
Craig Merz is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
