EVERETT — In the early days of tryouts, Danen Barnhart was greeted with puzzled looks and whispered questions. Who, everyone wanted to know, is the old guy?
These days, Barnhart is welcomed more warmly. In fact, he now has a nickname from his new teammates on the Everett Community College men’s soccer team.
They call him Grandpa.
That’s what happens when you’re older — and in Barnhart’s case, a lot older — than anyone else on the roster. While many of his teammates are still teenagers, he turns 40 in just a few months. Some of them graduated from high school last spring, and by that time Barnhart was already two years past his 20-year high school reunion (he is a Marysville-Pilchuck High School grad, class of 1985).
“It’s been an interesting culture shock, and probably more so for me than for them,” said Barnhart, who lives in Everett. “But they’re a good group and it’s really been fun.”
Although his boyish features allow him to blend in somewhat with the other players, Barnhart could hardly be more different. Beyond the obvious age gap, he also has a wife and three kids. While other players are pursuing associate of arts degrees, Barnhart has undergraduate and graduate degrees in business. He also has a successful career at Boeing, where he is an information technology manager for the 787, overseeing a staff of 12.
Then, add to those differences this one. Barnhart never played soccer as a boy. He loved basketball growing up, but was best at golf and once sported a 2 handicap, which allowed him to be a member of the Everett CC men’s golf team — 21 years ago.
As for soccer, he knew almost nothing about the game until a few years back, when he joined his wife Heather on an over-30 co-ed indoor team.
Playing recreationally was all Barnhart ever expected out of soccer, but then something started tugging at him last spring. Part of it was the lure of high-level competition. Part of it was the memory of being cut several times from the basketball team as a boy, and how that disappointment kept him from trying out again. And part of it was simply the chance to take on a really big challenge.
That last one probably tipped the scales. Barnhart knows he could have joined an adult men’s team, but a college tryout “was what scared me the most,” he said. “I just wanted to see if I could do it. And my dad taught me that sometimes the harder road is the worthwhile way to go.”
So Barnhart called new Everett CC head coach Tim Colvin last spring, and in that conversation explained that he had virtually no experience. He also mentioned that he would be a little older than the other players.
“And (Colvin) said, ‘That’s OK, older players are good. We have a guy on the team who’s 25,’” Barnhart recalled. “And I was thinking, ‘Well, if you think 25’s good, then 39 ought to be great.’
“I told him I just wanted a chance to come try out. And I said, ‘If I show up at the first tryout and it’s obvious I don’t belong out there, you tell me.’”
Colvin, meanwhile, admits that he was “kind of torn” after hanging up the telephone. As a first-year coach, his plan was to build the program around young players who understood “my vision and my style.” A 39-year-old novice was not really part of that plan, he said.
“But then I stopped and thought about it,” said Colvin, who is just two years older than Barnhart. “And I realized if I was trying to develop people and personality and character and accountability and all that stuff, it might be a great opportunity to have a guy who’s had some experience in life working with the younger kids who have zero.”
Barnhart, he went on, “is not the most seasoned player. But if all the other pieces of the puzzle were there and if the only thing lacking was just soccer ability, well, I thought I could give him some marginal soccer ability. And the interesting thing is, over time he’s developing.”
As for the other players, “it took them a while to kind of embrace him, but now they look up to him a little bit,” Colvin said.
Barnhart needs 10 academic credits to be eligible (he receives another two for soccer), and is taking online classes in consumer health and lifetime health and fitness, with Boeing picking up the cost for his continuing education. The company also allowed him to adjust his work schedule so he could make the team’s 2:30 p.m. practices. He arrives at the office at 5:30 or 6 a.m., and then leaves at 2 p.m. He finishes up in the evening with e-mail and other tasks he can do from home.
On game days, he said, “I’m in meetings where I have to think about business dealings and all these information technology issues, and then when I’m walking between meetings I’m thinking about the game. Like when I get in the game, how my first touch has to be good and then I have to make a good pass.
“I have a nervous stomach as I’m waiting for the games,” he said with a smile. “And I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m just like a kid.’”
Barnhart, a defender and outside midfielder, has yet to play in Everett CC’s first seven games (he missed a two-game out-of-town road trip because of work and family conflicts), but is hoping to get his first game action this week. The Trojans face Whatcom CC today, Shoreline CC on Friday and Edmonds CC on Saturday.
Next season, Barnhart is unsure if he will try out again, although “if everything lines up right, I’d love to do it,” he said. “I’m enjoying this that much.” Still, he has to balance those same work and family commitments, which means he will probably wait until next year, “and re-evaluate it then.”
In the meantime, he is eyeing other challenges. He has the itch to try a triathlon, but also has other non-sporting goals in mind. For one, he wants to be a singer. Not just crooning in the car or in the shower. He’s talking about being on a stage, in front of people.
“I’ve always been insecure about singing,” he said, “so that might be something I do before I’m 45.”
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