National spotlight on Mater Dei's Matt Barkley

It was late on a Friday night in 2005, and Bev and Les Barkley knew where their 15-year-old was.

It brought them little comfort.

Matt Barkley, one year short of his driver's license and one week into his 15th year, was playing quarterback for Mater Dei as a freshman. And Mission Viejo was playing with him. The final score was 48-7, but only because Mission Viejo suffered four turnovers.

The parents sat shielded by friends wearing red, and silently beseeched the clock to run to zero.

"People were yelling at us, the most horrible things you can imagine, and Mater Dei parents were yelling back," Bev said. "We wondered what we had gotten ourselves into."

Barkley finished the game with 12 passes and four completions, for 42 yards.

There are few passages in life as wide as the one between 15 and 18, especially when the 15-year-old is coming out of youth football, and the 18-year-olds have spent three years hoisting weights.

But when Matt came home that night, he wasn't broken or particularly bent.

"He was mad," his dad said, "just because he lost the game."

"Hey, it was a matter of 'Welcome to D-1 (Division I) football," Matt said the other day, in Coach Bruce Rollinson's office, his eyes never drifting to the table full of national high school awards.

All the Barkleys look through the wrong end of the binoculars now and find amusement, and amazement, at the kid back then.

"It's hard to look back now and remember what those days are like," Les Barkley said.

Matt just laughs.

"Back then I was just playing," he said. "Think about it, and it was pretty crazy."

Today Matt Barkley is known as the nation's best high school quarterback.

He has a scholarship to USC, where Les once captained the water polo team, where Les met Bev during the '84 Olympics when Bev was working for ABC Sports.

Matt is 6-foot-3, 222 pounds. He has been reading blitzes and salvaging busted plays since he was 12 years old, playing in the Junior All-American youth league for the Newport-Mesa Seahawks.

He has been studying with offensive coordinator Dave Money for those four years, and he has worked with quarterback tutor Steve Clarkson.

He is obviously beyond his years. But there was one year that he had to get beyond.

The Mission Viejo nightmare wasn't the end of it. Barkley's debut was actually the previous week against Orange Lutheran, when the Monarchs lost, 27-21.

Mater Dei beat Foothill, but in a Week 4 loss to Edison, Rollinson benched Barkley and played two other quarterbacks, then tried Barkley again.

"It obviously wasn't him," Rollinson said. "He was making typical freshman mistakes. He was getting frustrated. I was getting frustrated. Everyone thought Rollinson was an idiot. If you had told me 10 years earlier I would be playing a freshman quarterback, I would have laughed you out of the room.

"But you generally only had to tell him things once. And he was handling all our time demands as well as honors courses on the freshman level. I told Bev and Les they might want to lighten his course load a little bit. But they kept saying, 'No, he'll handle it. He's all right.'''

At home in Newport Beach, they began wondering.

IN HIS NATURE

Even in kindergarten Matt was tunneled into whatever task he was doing, to the point that even threats of timeouts couldn't deter him.

"They used to have a special set of toys set aside for him at school," Bev said. "He didn't stop until he was finished. But now, his freshman year, it was beginning to pile up on him.

"He'd come home at 9 p.m. after practice. Then he'd go right to his homework. Finally we told him he had to stop at midnight, that we didn't care what his grades were, that he had to get some rest. He had to get up at 6 or so to get to school the next day."

Mater Dei beat Loara to go 2-3, then went 4-1 in Serra League play. The Monarchs beat Colton in the playoffs but lost Barkley, who was blasted so hard by future USC teammate Allen Bradford that he broke his collarbone when he hit the ground. Mater Dei lost to Loyola next week.

Since then Barkley has done everything but win Southern Section championships for the Monarchs. He passed for a county-record 3,560 yards and 35 touchdowns in '07.

Through it all he has greeted sunshine and shadows with the same even hand.

"He just does not get rattled, because he has tremendous confidence," Rollinson said. "He has a great way of leading. Now he's coaching the younger guys, and we have a lot of them, and it's great to see."

Mater Dei is not listed among the West's top teams this year, thanks to graduation losses.

"People may be underestimating No. 5," he said, referring to Barkley's number. "High school football is a quarterback's game. We've got the quarterback."

No one will be bugging Matt Barkley about the '08 playoffs this Christmas. The whole family is headed to South Africa, under the Bridges of Hope project, to help build homes.

He's been to Mexico to mix mortar and lay bricks and play soccer with children. He often brings his guitar to Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa and leads worship.

"I love going on those trips to try to give something back, because I've obviously been pretty fortunate," Barkley said. "And, yeah, it allows me to get away from everything else, although people ask me on Sunday morning about the game on Friday night."

He has spent his life in the midst of everything. He was the center midfielder when he played soccer, a pitcher and third baseman in baseball.

What he loved most was volleyball, but one day Les saw him wind up for a kill and come down holding his shoulder. "That was pretty much it for volleyball," the dad said.

Barkley still puts up the nets, during vacations on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Barkleys go with the Boyers. Robbie, Mater Dei's receiver and now a walk-on at USC, is Matt's cousin. Matt's younger brother Sam, now a safety at Mater Dei, runs patterns in the sand as well.

"Robbie and Sam are the ones who might as well be brothers," Bev said, laughing. "They're hunters. Sam's a strong safety. Very outgoing and exuberant. Matt's more mellow."

"But there's a chance Sam will get to run some offense," Matt said. "I can't think of anything better than throwing him a touchdown pass for Mater Dei."

It all started when Les was on a business trip to Taiwan.

Bev was looking for a summer football camp for Matt. She noticed an advertisement for Mater Dei. She was not aware of Heisman Trophy winner Matt Leinart, or Rollinson's national championships. She just dialed the number, waited for the recording to give her the proper extension, punched it in, and heard a growl that has now become familiar.

"Usually it's the father who is pushing his kid to play quarterback for me," Rollinson said. "There's a lot of quarterback-shopping going on these days. This time, I thought, well, now, that's different."

Fast-forward to the spring of 2005. Because Boyer was already at Mater Dei, the Barkleys felt comfortable enough to send Matt. Football was only part of the equation then.

Jason Forcier had been Mater Dei's quarterback in 2003, but he and younger brother, Chris, another quarterback, transferred to St. Augustine in San Diego. Rollinson had Kyle Woody to handle '04. He was stumped after that.

"We threw it open for competition," Rollinson said. "We went into our passing league schedule and Matt threw a 35-yard touchdown at Edison, his very first pass. He gave us our best chance."

"They didn't really cut down the playbook just because I was a freshman," Matt said. "I could change a play from one side or the other if I needed to. This was a different level but I felt I was prepared."

He was. His parents weren't. Even now, Bev has to leave her seat and pace around the stadium for a while. But she and Les always know things can be worse.

"The most impressive thing about that whole freshman year was that Matt never complained," Les said. "He never said it was too much. He never felt sorry for himself. He never wanted us to help him. After that was all over, we felt more comfortable."

Whatever doesn't kill your parents makes you stronger.

Related:
• More photos, bio info and news stories about Matt Barkley
• All Football Kickoff '08 articles

Contact the writer: mwhicker@ocregister.com