MIDDLETOWN — Jack Barker is hands-down Middletown High School”s leading ball carrier. It can be said with all assurance that no one at M”town or, for that matter, any other high school town ever has or ever will cover more ground with a football under his arm than Jack.
What”s more, no one in the school”s history will ever be held in higher esteem.
OK, there”s a catch to this.
Jack doesn”t run vertically. His course is lateral. Barker carries the footballs in and out from the sidelines during the course of the Mustangs” games.
But there”s still a lot of wonderment in that, because Jack has been doing this for 30 years … and has never missed a game! Home or away.
“Never have — not one game,” said Barker.
“He likes to help out,” said Middletown coach Bill Foltmer. “He does it because he enjoys it. He just likes being around the kids. He gets the balls out for us every game, even away. He comes to practices and runs errands for me, and he”s fun to have around.
“People know him better than they know me,” Foltmer quips.
“They”ll ask is Jack here this year?” adds Middletown athletic director Geri Giovannetti.
One of Jack”s proudest moments was when he was awarded a Mustang jacket by the team”s boosters.
But football”s just part of it. Barker is truly a Jack-of-all-sports, assisting with basketball, baseball, wrestling and girls” softball, among others.
“He means a lot to us,” said Giovannetti just before the Mustangs” football game against Kelseyville. “Like today he came looking for me because he wanted to help. He”s coming tomorrow night to help me with soccer.”
Giovannetti draws a comparison between Barker and the role played by actor Cuba Gooding in the film “Radio,” the nickname given to Robert Kennedy, Gooding”s mentally challenged character, because he collected radios and loved music. In the film, Kennedy is befriended by the popular coach of the highly successful Anderson, South Carolina high school football team and comes out a hero.
Sound familiar?
“Jack is our ?Radio” and I mean that in the nicest and fondest way,” asserts Giovannetti.
The fondness is not restricted to Giovannetti and Foltmer.
“He”s one of our teammates,” says offensive lineman Cory McMuray.
“Jack is the man of the year!” exudes quarterback Kyle Harmyk, who, in saying that, could have been any football player in any year of the last three decades.
“He”s like one of the guys,” asserts guard Dakoda Bracisco.
Did we mention that Barker is 65 years old? Or that at that age he can still outrun some of his Mustang “teammates” while carrying those footballs in and out.
“I think he”s faster than me,” Bracisco acknowledges.
“He runs well,” Foltmer shrugs. “He can outrun me.”
The likeness to the “Radio” character is just one of the many ways the folks in Middletown know Barker, whose helpfulness extends far beyond the football field and the gym.
“Jack is the honorary mayor of Middletown, like Emperor Norton in San Francisco,” town barber Wayne Nelson said with a laugh. “I tell him ?you”re the mayor, Jack, and I”m the vice mayor. You take care of the town and I”ll take care of the vice.””
And take care of the town, Barker does.
In all candor, Nelson talks of how Barker does everything from emptying garbage cans and sweeping up and running errands for Main Street merchants. He is employed by Hardester”s Middletown market.
“I help the older people around town,” Barker says proudly. “I clean their yard, deliver their groceries, whatever they need done.”
Said Foltmer, “Jack is probably one of the most recognizeable characters we”ve got in our town. Everybody knows him — from the guys who played here 30 years ago to parents coming in with their kids in youth football, because he helps out with everything. You name it, Jack does it. He just likes to help; he”s just the No. 1 helper.”
Moreover, on Christmas holidays, he is the man in the Santa Claus suit. On Halloween he is the scariest and bloodiest of characters, so well disguised that no one recognizes him. Every year, he is “Smokey Bear” and “Sparky the Dog” in the Middletown Days parades. He is also a volunteer fireman and spent several years cleaning engines and assisting at the local fire station.
Being born and raised in Middletown, of course, lends to the townspeople knowing him so well. He is one of 13 children in his family. Being picked on by older twin brothers led to Barker”s talent of throwing rocks.
“He was a helluva good rock-thrower,” Nelson recalls. “He was very accurate with a rock from the time he was 7, so the twin brothers left him alone after a while.”
Barker is proud that he can recite the names of his teachers in every grade, first through eighth, in the Middletown school system.
Bottom line, if you live in Middletown and don”t know Jack, umm … well, you don”t know jack.
