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Why one Southern California prospect is spurning Power 5 offers to play at Harvard
DerekJohnson
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By Ari Wasserman
Harold Barkate took his son, Cooper, to an Anaheim Angels game eight years ago. He asked Cooper, who was 9 at the time and playing youth baseball, what he thought was the best job on the team. Cooper said he’d like to be the pitcher.
That’s a perfectly fine answer, but Harold was quick to point out that wasn’t the best job. The correct answer? Being the owner of the team sitting upstairs in the skybox.
“We wanted (our kids) to know to chase their dreams, but there are other things that are really interesting to do that you may not know about yet, so you should be paying attention to that as well,” Harold said. “Cooper wants to be a high achiever, whether that’s football or whether it’s in the business world, or whatever he does. I think he likes to really challenge himself.”
A story like that helps bring this whole picture together. Cooper Barkate, a three-star prospect at Southern California powerhouse Mater Dei in Santa Ana, is doing something you rarely see from an elite-level high school football prospect. Despite having a long list of Power 5 football offers, Barkate has committed to Harvard. Rated the No. 412 player in the 2022 class in the 247Sports Composite, Barkate is one of only two top-700 prospects committed to play for an FCS school. When he makes it official in December, he’ll be the highest-rated player to ever sign with Harvard.
In college football recruiting, prospects often say that education is important. You hear quotes such as, “Football is going to end one day, so I want something to fall back on.” But even the most academically-oriented prospects typically end up at places such as Notre Dame, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt or Stanford — programs that still play big-time football while also providing an outstanding degree that opens doors down the road.
Not Barkate. Cooper has his plan all mapped out: attend Harvard for four years, get perhaps the most prestigious diploma in the nation while excelling in football, grad transfer to a Power 5 program for one final year, make the NFL — even if only for a short time as a practice squad player to achieve his lifelong dream — and then move to New York City and start a high-powered career in wealth management. Maybe he’ll run a hedge fund one day.
“I honestly just realized that the world is big,” Barkate said. “I’m a football guy, and the world is more run by the Harvard-type people. Football can only take you so far. … I hope to play as long as I can in the NFL, whether that is just my rookie contract or just one year. I’m not looking to make all my money off of that. I want to say I achieved my dream of playing in the NFL.”
Barkate’s father, Harold, who is an orthodontist, played football at UCLA in the 1980s under Terry Donahue. His grandfather played at LSU. Football runs in the family, and with scholarship offers from UCLA, Arizona State, Arkansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Purdue, Utah, Virginia Tech and others, he could have just followed in his father’s footsteps. He grew up going to the Rose Bowl and had sideline access before games because his father was a Bruin. And UCLA is a tremendous academic institution.
It was Barkate’s sister, Maddie — a sophomore on the Harvard women’s lacrosse team — who provided the blueprint.
“Seeing the people with a level of status that would reach out to her and say congratulations, Harvard alumni and people from the Ivy League,” Barkate said, “that really opened my eyes to a new aspect of the world that I never knew really existed to be honest.”
In the 2019-20 academic year, the full cost of attending Harvard was about $70,000. So a full ride to play football for the Crimson seems like a great deal. But that’s not how it works. Ivy League programs don’t issue athletic scholarships. They do, however, offer great financial aid packages.
But the Barkates would not qualify. That means not only is Barkate choosing to play at Harvard over scholarships from Notre Dame, UCLA and others, but his family is also going to pay for it.
“In regards to the financial burden that it is, I never wanted my kids to pick a school off of, “Can we afford it?'” Harold said. “I wanted them to go to the best school they could go to and the one they wanted to go to, and we’d figure out a way to make it happen. Cooper and my daughter, Maddie, were candidates to go to Harvard, and we were determined to not put any pressure on them to go to a school we didn’t have to pay for. This is something we have been thinking about for years, so we mentally prepared ourselves that they may get their school paid for or they may not. But we were never going to put the pressure on them to pick a school they didn’t want to go to because we didn’t have to pay for it.
“We also obviously believe that any investment we can make in their educations is going to benefit them greatly down the line. Now that’s up to Maddie and Cooper to make it happen, but we want to set our kids up in the best situation that is right for them so they can achieve success for the next 40 or 50 years.”
Barkate plays at a high school that churns out top-level football recruits every year. His teammates include five-star cornerback Domani Jackson (committed to USC) and four-star receiver C.J. Williams (committed to Notre Dame). And though his teammates are proud of him, he says they can’t quite understand why he isn’t going to play football at the highest level possible. This isn’t a prospect with a bunch of non-committable offers. “He’s a bona fide Power 5 prospect,” a Power 5 recruiting coordinator told The Athletic.
So why not go play at Notre Dame? UCLA? USC? Oregon? Nebraska?
Teenagers don’t usually view the world the way Barkate does.
“I mean, my teammates are definitely impressed by it just as much as I’m impressed by them being committed to their awesome schools,” Barkate said. “But yeah, they do tell me from time to time that I should be going to a bigger football school. But to that, I say, “Just, just wait. I got my plan.’
“It’s definitely a cleaner path to go on to one of those bigger schools if you want to make it to the NFL. But I mean, I’ve asked myself the same question. Why don’t more people take this opportunity or this path?”
Mater Dei head coach Bruce Rollison has been doing this for a long time. He’s never seen anything like Barkate.
“He’s an interesting cat,” Rollison said. “I’ve seen a lot of big-time offers, and he has that talent. You know, some kids when they’re really smart, they carry it on their chest. He’s a very quiet, unassuming, really popular athlete in the locker room. I don’t time 40s, but I guarantee you he’d be a 4.4 kid. He can take the top off of it. He can make the big catch. He’s my secret weapon. Sometimes when he makes a play, I’ll look out there and chuckle and think, “He’s going to Harvard.'”
Barkate has a plan. Maybe he’ll make it as a player in the NFL.
Or maybe he’ll own a team.
Harold Barkate took his son, Cooper, to an Anaheim Angels game eight years ago. He asked Cooper, who was 9 at the time and playing youth baseball, what he thought was the best job on the team. Cooper said he’d like to be the pitcher.
That’s a perfectly fine answer, but Harold was quick to point out that wasn’t the best job. The correct answer? Being the owner of the team sitting upstairs in the skybox.
“We wanted (our kids) to know to chase their dreams, but there are other things that are really interesting to do that you may not know about yet, so you should be paying attention to that as well,” Harold said. “Cooper wants to be a high achiever, whether that’s football or whether it’s in the business world, or whatever he does. I think he likes to really challenge himself.”
A story like that helps bring this whole picture together. Cooper Barkate, a three-star prospect at Southern California powerhouse Mater Dei in Santa Ana, is doing something you rarely see from an elite-level high school football prospect. Despite having a long list of Power 5 football offers, Barkate has committed to Harvard. Rated the No. 412 player in the 2022 class in the 247Sports Composite, Barkate is one of only two top-700 prospects committed to play for an FCS school. When he makes it official in December, he’ll be the highest-rated player to ever sign with Harvard.
In college football recruiting, prospects often say that education is important. You hear quotes such as, “Football is going to end one day, so I want something to fall back on.” But even the most academically-oriented prospects typically end up at places such as Notre Dame, Duke, Northwestern, Vanderbilt or Stanford — programs that still play big-time football while also providing an outstanding degree that opens doors down the road.
Not Barkate. Cooper has his plan all mapped out: attend Harvard for four years, get perhaps the most prestigious diploma in the nation while excelling in football, grad transfer to a Power 5 program for one final year, make the NFL — even if only for a short time as a practice squad player to achieve his lifelong dream — and then move to New York City and start a high-powered career in wealth management. Maybe he’ll run a hedge fund one day.
“I honestly just realized that the world is big,” Barkate said. “I’m a football guy, and the world is more run by the Harvard-type people. Football can only take you so far. … I hope to play as long as I can in the NFL, whether that is just my rookie contract or just one year. I’m not looking to make all my money off of that. I want to say I achieved my dream of playing in the NFL.”
Barkate’s father, Harold, who is an orthodontist, played football at UCLA in the 1980s under Terry Donahue. His grandfather played at LSU. Football runs in the family, and with scholarship offers from UCLA, Arizona State, Arkansas, Nebraska, Oregon, Purdue, Utah, Virginia Tech and others, he could have just followed in his father’s footsteps. He grew up going to the Rose Bowl and had sideline access before games because his father was a Bruin. And UCLA is a tremendous academic institution.
It was Barkate’s sister, Maddie — a sophomore on the Harvard women’s lacrosse team — who provided the blueprint.
“Seeing the people with a level of status that would reach out to her and say congratulations, Harvard alumni and people from the Ivy League,” Barkate said, “that really opened my eyes to a new aspect of the world that I never knew really existed to be honest.”
In the 2019-20 academic year, the full cost of attending Harvard was about $70,000. So a full ride to play football for the Crimson seems like a great deal. But that’s not how it works. Ivy League programs don’t issue athletic scholarships. They do, however, offer great financial aid packages.
But the Barkates would not qualify. That means not only is Barkate choosing to play at Harvard over scholarships from Notre Dame, UCLA and others, but his family is also going to pay for it.
“In regards to the financial burden that it is, I never wanted my kids to pick a school off of, “Can we afford it?'” Harold said. “I wanted them to go to the best school they could go to and the one they wanted to go to, and we’d figure out a way to make it happen. Cooper and my daughter, Maddie, were candidates to go to Harvard, and we were determined to not put any pressure on them to go to a school we didn’t have to pay for. This is something we have been thinking about for years, so we mentally prepared ourselves that they may get their school paid for or they may not. But we were never going to put the pressure on them to pick a school they didn’t want to go to because we didn’t have to pay for it.
“We also obviously believe that any investment we can make in their educations is going to benefit them greatly down the line. Now that’s up to Maddie and Cooper to make it happen, but we want to set our kids up in the best situation that is right for them so they can achieve success for the next 40 or 50 years.”
Barkate plays at a high school that churns out top-level football recruits every year. His teammates include five-star cornerback Domani Jackson (committed to USC) and four-star receiver C.J. Williams (committed to Notre Dame). And though his teammates are proud of him, he says they can’t quite understand why he isn’t going to play football at the highest level possible. This isn’t a prospect with a bunch of non-committable offers. “He’s a bona fide Power 5 prospect,” a Power 5 recruiting coordinator told The Athletic.
So why not go play at Notre Dame? UCLA? USC? Oregon? Nebraska?
Teenagers don’t usually view the world the way Barkate does.
“I mean, my teammates are definitely impressed by it just as much as I’m impressed by them being committed to their awesome schools,” Barkate said. “But yeah, they do tell me from time to time that I should be going to a bigger football school. But to that, I say, “Just, just wait. I got my plan.’
“It’s definitely a cleaner path to go on to one of those bigger schools if you want to make it to the NFL. But I mean, I’ve asked myself the same question. Why don’t more people take this opportunity or this path?”
Mater Dei head coach Bruce Rollison has been doing this for a long time. He’s never seen anything like Barkate.
“He’s an interesting cat,” Rollison said. “I’ve seen a lot of big-time offers, and he has that talent. You know, some kids when they’re really smart, they carry it on their chest. He’s a very quiet, unassuming, really popular athlete in the locker room. I don’t time 40s, but I guarantee you he’d be a 4.4 kid. He can take the top off of it. He can make the big catch. He’s my secret weapon. Sometimes when he makes a play, I’ll look out there and chuckle and think, “He’s going to Harvard.'”
Barkate has a plan. Maybe he’ll make it as a player in the NFL.
Or maybe he’ll own a team.
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Thanks Taft!