End of the Road at Last : After Spending Time at Four Schools, Barnes Gets the Chance He Has Always Dreamed About--to Play Quarterback at UCLA

Heads turned when quarterback John Barnes showed up at the UCLA athletic department wearing a coat and tie for his first meeting with Bruin offensive coordinator Homer Smith last spring.

“We thought he was coming for a job interview,” Smith said. “In college, a young person just doesn’t dress up in a suit to come to an athletic department.”

Barnes, who transferred to UCLA last spring after UC Santa Barbara dropped its football program, wanted to make a good impression on the coaches, who are used to dealing with players wearing shorts and T-shirts.

“I wanted (them to) know I was serious about coming here,” Barnes said. “I got a haircut, and I wore a new outfit that my mom helped me pick out.”

After meeting with the coaches, Barnes went out to the practice field and threw passes.

“Coach Smith started making me do dropbacks wearing my dress shoes,” Barnes said. “I’m sure all the guys on the team were laughing at me when I was standing out there.”

After watching Barnes throw and evaluating game films of him, Bruin Coach Terry Donahue didn’t offer him a scholarship, allowing him to become a walk-on.

“Coach Donahue told me the situation up front,” Barnes said. “He said my possibility of playing would be limited.”

Instead, Barnes, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior who has attended four colleges in five years, has become UCLA’s starting quarterback because of injuries to Wayne Cook, Rob Walker and Ryan Fien.

Barnes is the first walk-on quarterback to start for the Bruins since Rick Neuheisel, who came to UCLA in 1979 and started 10 games in 1983.

“It’s very unusual for a kid to walk on from UC Santa Barbara and start for UCLA, very unusual,” Smith said. “It’s very unusual to play at four schools. He’s what we used to call a tramp athlete--a kid who went from school to school. But he’s a very bright, determined young man who has success written all over him in whatever he tries.”

Barnes will start his second game Saturday at California, where the Bruins will try to end a four-game losing streak. Barnes, who has completed 55% of his passes for 132 yards, with no touchdowns and two interceptions, started against Washington State two weeks ago, but lasted only three series before he was pulled after throwing an interception that was returned for a touchdown in the Bruins’ 30-17 loss.

He was consoled after the game by his mother, Colleen, who flew to Pullman.

“It was hard watching him go through that emotional upheaval,” she said. “It was just that he was trying too hard to do well, and he felt that he had not lived up to the expectations. And that hurt me as a mother.”

Barnes’ younger brother, Pat, a senior at Trabuco Hills High in Mission Viejo, is one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks in Orange County. Pat Barnes, who has passed for 1,500 yards and 14 touchdowns in leading his team to a 6-1 record, virtually has his choice of colleges.

But college recruiters didn’t want John Barnes.

After passing for 2,000 yards and 21 touchdowns as a senior at Trabuco Hills in 1987, he wasn’t recruited because he had played quarterback for only one season.

“Everybody dreams that they’d have a shot with a big school,” Barnes said. “I used to see UCLA play and I thought to myself, ‘Hey, I could play out there.’ But I just wanted to play for anybody that would give me a chance.”

He attended Saddleback College in 1988 but didn’t play football. After starting two games for Saddleback in 1989, he transferred to Western Oregon State College, an NAIA Division II school in Monmouth, Ore. He passed for 473 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions in four games in 1990, starting two, before missing the last five games after breaking his right hand in a freak accident.

“I was showing my buddy how to ride a bike in the locker room and I busted my hand,” Barnes said. “It was a stupid accident. I was showing him how BMX racers ride. I made a couple trips around the locker room, and I slammed the bike into a locker. I felt like an idiot.

“I couldn’t tell the coaches, so I started practice and I could feel my bones flapping around in my hand as I threw.”

Barnes left Western Oregon State when the coaching staff was fired after a 1-8 season. The new coaches wanted to convert him to tight end.

He passed for 2,100 yards and 23 touchdowns and ran for six touchdowns at UC Santa Barbara last season. However, the football program was dropped after the students voted to cut the sport last February.

“I wanted to play one more year because sports has been such a big part of my life,” Barnes said. “It’s a way of expressing myself and letting myself go.”

Barnes arrived at UCLA several days before the start of spring quarter without a place to stay.

“I didn’t know that I’d gotten into school until the Friday before school was to start, so I packed up my car and came down here,” Barnes said. “I didn’t have any place to live, so I tried to find a friend on campus that I could stay with. I didn’t feel comfortable asking anyone on the team.”

Barnes found a place, sleeping on a couch in a friend’s apartment before finding his own place. He shares a West Los Angeles apartment with teammates Mike Nguyen and Kaleaph Carter.

“After transferring from school to school, I’ve learned how to develop friendships and be patient,” Barnes said. “I have a poster on my wall that says, ‘Good things happen to those who wait.’ I knew it would work out.”

Barnes, who began the season as the Bruins’ third-string quarterback, moved to the second team after Cook suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Bruins’ season-opening victory over Cal State Fullerton.

Walker’s backup for UCLA’s next four games, Barnes was thrust into the starting lineup after Walker sprained his left ankle in a 19-7 loss to Stanford.

“I had prepared myself to play,” Barnes said. “I’ve tried to be persistent. There were times when my parents doubted me and wanted me to stay at a school, but I kept pursing my dream.”

And Barnes’ dream came true.