Lake Barrett is The College of Wooster's 15th NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship selection since 2018. The senior placekicker was recently notified by the NCAA as one of the 21 male fall student-athletes set to receive the one-time, non-renewable $10,000 scholarship.
"The help I received in earning this scholarship is the culmination of the many ways Wooster helped me over the last five years," summed up Barrett. "I am so thankful to all the people who helped me along the way at Wooster. The NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship is the first of many ways that my time at Wooster will continue to help me in the years to come."
"We are so proud of the career Lake had, the person he is, and of this amazing achievement," shared head coach Frank Colaprete. "Lake was a tremendous student-athlete and even better person who always put in the hard work on and off the field. He is very deserving of the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. We wish him the best of luck and continued success."
The College's fourth three-time College Sports Communicators Academic All-American® was one of 10 finalists this fall for the Fred Mitchell Award, presented annually to the best placekicker for a combination of elite athletics, academics, and community service. Over 700 non-NCAA Div. I Football Bowl Subdivision college teams were eligible to submit a nominee for the prestigious award. Elsewhere, Barrett earned Wooster's first North Coast Athletic Conference Special Teams Player of the Year honor, was a first-team All-NCAC performer, and became the eighth player in program history to earn All-NCAC honors in four separate seasons. The three-time CSC Academic All-District® qualifier, the two-time National Football Foundation William V. Campbell Trophy semifinalist, and Allstate American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team nominee went on to earn D3football.com all-region honors for the second time in 2023.
Barrett capped his Wooster career as the all-time leader with 29 field goals and ranks second all-time with a 76 percent success rate. The five-year standout is Wooster's all-time leader with a 99.4 percent success rate on extra points and went a remarkable 155-for-156, which included a run of 134 consecutive makes to close out his career. The lone placekicker in program history to have at least 35 extra-point makes with no misses in three different seasons finished fifth in program history with 242 points, a total second among kickers.
As a first-year, Barrett made an immediate impact, breaking the program's single-season record with 11 field goals and ranking 16th nationally with a 78.6 field-goal percentage. Barrett, who ranked in the top-20 nationally in field goals per game, had a long of 42 against DePauw University. As a junior (2021 season), Barrett became the first placekicker in program history to make over 40 extra points in a season without a miss. Barrett's 71 points in 2021 marked the second-most among placekickers in program history and he moved into the top-five all-time in all of the career kicking categories.
Wooster's nominee for the Athletes for a Better World Coach John Wooden Citizenship Cup interned last summer with Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon in Peru. While abroad, Barrett studied differences in frog species in the local forest and contributed to the organization's reforestation advocacy efforts with the Peruvian government. Barrett also assisted with leading Alliance for a Sustainable Amazon education outreach initiatives.
Barrett's trip to Peru marked the second to Central America. He spent the spring 2022 semester studying abroad in Panama. While there, Barrett was part of a tropical ecology program where he studied a cacao agro-forest and compared in to the national forest. Specifically, Barrett's research centered on if agroforests can serve as a habitat for amphibians by looking at conservation, species diversity, evenness, and richness.
Barrett's Independent Study on black squirrel melanin yielded groundbreaking research. The biology and education alumnus discovered the mutation in black squirrels in Colorado is different than those found in Ohio, and this research is in the process of being scientifically published.
On campus, Barrett spent two semesters and one summer as a lead zoology lab assistant working with a colony of strawberry dart frogs. Barrett was tasked with ensuring the colony's survival and logging regular research observations. Within the zoology lab, Barrett conducted field research on squirrels, salamanders, and frogs. He was the lead researcher on planning a thorough catalog and organization of the College's natural history specimens, which led to thousands of specimens within the College's collection being properly cataloged. He also volunteered with various STEM Success Initiative events on campus and the football team's Be the Match bone marrow registry event.
Barrett has accepted a teaching position at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and is in the process of applying to the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education's independent school teaching residency program to pursue a master's degree in education.
Barrett is Wooster's 29th all-time NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient and the sixth from football. Barrett's selection marks the fifth straight academic year Wooster has had a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient. Wooster finished tied for first-place in the entire NCAA for most selections during the 2021-22 academic year, and the Scots have finished in the top-five nationally for most recipients three times since the 2017-18 academic year.