By Keith Mills

From Annapolis to McDonogh; Bradenton, Fla., to Tampa; San Jose to Washington, D.C.; Columbus, Ohio to the Rose Bowl. When it comes to magical mystery tours, the Beatles have nothing on Devin Barclay.

Barclay grew up in Annapolis, played high school soccer at McDonogh for coach Steve Nichols and is now a 26-year-old junior at Ohio State. He is also the Buckeyes’ field goal kicker and a hero in Columbus -- his 39-yard boot in overtime beat Iowa, 24-21, Nov. 14 to vault the Buckeyes into the Rose Bowl.

Former McDonogh soccer star Devin Barclay is Rose Bowl bound. (Ohio State Athletics)

Barclay's athletic story is an amazing one. Like Patterson's Sonny Askew, Darryl Gee of Oakland Mills, Calvert Hall's Tim Wittman, Todd Haskins of Howard High, Santino Quaranta of Archbishop Curley, Arundel's Kyle Beckerman and McDonogh's Chris Agorsor, Barclay was a teenage phenomenon in soccer who attracted professional interest at a young age. 

Unlike Agorsor, the 2008 Gatorade National Player of the Year who is now at Virginia; Haskins, the 1990 Gatorade National Player of the Year who went to North Carolina; and Askew, who spent two years at Essex Community College before beginning his pro career with the Washington Diplomats in 1977, Barclay did not go to college directly out of high school. He preferred instead to explore a path taken by Gee, Wittman, Quaranta and Beckerman.

Gee left Oakland Mills in 1980 for the U.S. senior national team and then the New York Cosmos.

Both the Baltimore Blast of the Major Indoor Soccer League and the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League drafted Wittman in 1980 when he was a 17-year-old senior at Calvert Hall. He chose the Blast and is now a member of the team's Hall of Fame.

Beckerman graduated from Arundel in 1999 and signed a developmental contract with the MLS. He is now playing for Real Salt Lake.

Quaranta was a high school All-American at Archbishop Curley. He left Curley after his junior year for the IMG Soccer Academy in Bradenton before beginning his professional career with DC United in 2001. The 25-year-old is an active member of the U.S. national team pool and is still playing for United in the MLS.

Barclay left high school after his junior year. After a third outstanding year at McDonogh in 1999, Barclay headed to Bradenton, Fla., to the IMG Academy, where he studied for his high school degree and played for the U.S. national Under-17 team.  

As a 13-year-old eighth-grader, Barclay earned a spot in the United States Olympic Development program. One year later as a freshman at McDonogh, he scored 11 goals and added 11 assists as the Eagles won their first MIAA A Conference championship. As a sophomore he tallied 19 more assists.

Barclay also played on U.S. Under-18, Under-20 and Under-23 teams and began his professional career in 2001 with the Tampa Bay Mutiny of the MLS. When the Mutiny folded one year later, he was picked up by San Jose.

In 2003, he was traded from San Jose to DC United but was traded again in '04 to the Columbus Crew. After playing two years for Columbus, Barclay retired after the '06 season and enrolled at Ohio State University. This past year he walked on for the football team as a kicker -- and he made it.

When starting kicker Aaron Pettrey injured his knee three weeks ago against New Mexico State, Barclay booted his first collegiate field goal, a 29-yard kick that helped the Buckeyes breeze to a 45-0 win. Pettrey was lost for the season, which gave the starting job to Barclay, the oldest player on the team and an academic junior with two years of eligibility remaining.

He kicked a 37-yard field goal in Ohio State's 24-7 win over Penn State, and then kicked a pair of field goals in the victory over Iowa. That 39-yarder won the game in overtime, gave Ohio State its fifth straight conference championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl.

Originally Posted: November 17, 2009, Updated in Issue 144: December 2009