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FCTowamencin National Champion team Member Jake Barlow Wins Scholar Athlete Award
Updated: 06/12/2012 at 11:01 PM
Quakertown's Jake Barlow wins Lehigh Valley Soccer Scholar-Athlete AwardQuakertown's Jake Barlow wins Lehigh Valley Soccer Scholar-Athlete AwardJacob T. Barlow from Quakertown High School. Candidate for Lehigh Valley… (THE MORNING CALL)
January 29, 2012|By Tim Shoemaker, Special To The Morning Call
Todd
and Susan Barlow of Quakertown received a rare break from parental
responsibility about nine years ago when they noticed their third-grade
son Jake doing something unusual.
He was doing his homework without being asked.
"When he was in third grade, we stopped even asking about homework," Todd Barlow said. "There was no reason to (ask)."
Todd
Barlow has more stories. The day after he finished his rigorous junior
year last spring, one filled with nothing but AP classes, the elder
Barlow saw his son watching something on a computer.
It was an MIT chemistry course.
The
younger Barlow plays soccer, too, and well enough to compete on the
boys team at Quakertown Community High School and play on a club team
that won a national championship in Iowa last summer.
On
Sunday night at the Fullerton Fire Company, Jake Barlow, a midfielder
and forward who wants to play at either MIT or Cornell, became the first
Quakertown student to win the Lehigh Valley Soccer Scholar-Athlete
award and second overall in the 29-year history of the banquet. Jennica
Stiglich won the girls award in 2008.
Barlow
has a weighted GPA of 4.40, has scored in the top one percent
nationally in ACT scores, and in his free time, he self-studies a free
chemical science course on MIT's website.
In
addition to playing four years of varsity at Quakertown and being
all-area honorable mention last fall, he competes with FC Towamencin of
the Lansdale area. He was the leading scorer on his team's run to the
National President's Cup championship last summer.
Despite
all of this, he maintained a level of surprise when his name was
announced at the end of the banquet, which featured speaker Sheldon
Chamberlain, a Liberty
High and East Stroudsburg University graduate who now coaches at
Spring-Ford High School. Chamberlain and Jose Mendez were elected to the
Lehigh Valley soccer Hall of Fame.
"I wish I didn't have to make a speech," Jake Barlow told the crowd of more than 200.
Barlow
expresses himself in other ways. Because Quakertown has had three
coaching changes in his time there, he played a leadership role in
trying to keep players from leaving the team.
"We
had a tough high school season," he said. "Three different coaches in
my four years. There was a lot of switching around. I've done a lot of
going around to try to keep kids committed. It was a fun time trying to
keep it together and make sure things don't fall apart."
Barlow
said he did not completely understand the magnitude of the banquet
until he walked in the door and saw scholar-athletes from 37 schools,
their parents and coaches.
"When
I first heard about this, I didn't know how many people would be here,"
he said. "I thought it would be relatively small. I figured there would
be competitive people here, and there were. I was surprised that I
won."
Barlow said that he is most proud of his perfect GPA. He has not yet officially heard from MIT and Cornell.
He wants to work in research and development. He occasionally tutors fellow students at home and in school.
His
father, Todd, works in senior administration in the behavioral health
field. His mother, Susan, is a CFO of a chemical manufacturing company
in Quakertown.
Because
her son showed academic motivation well before the age of 10, Susan
Barlow has a different perception of her son than most mothers.
"I haven't thought of him as a kid in a long time," Susan Barlow said. "He's been a young man for quite a few years."
Tim Shoemaker is a freelance writer.
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