Zach Barket’s Amazing Rush Totals lead Nation in ’08: A Story Hard To Believe!

Posted on January 7, 2009. Filed under: High School Football | Tags: 1000 yard guy, 1000ydguy, adrian peterson, barry sanders, billy sims, bobby mills, emmit smith, gale sayers, herschel walker, ken hall, mike farr, myhitnews.com, schuylkill haven hs, shaun alexander, zach barket nations leading hs rusher |

Zach Barket's 4,197 rushing yards led the nation in 2008

By Bobby Mills
(1000ydguy)
Contributing Writer
my Hit News.com

Hard to Believe
   Some things in life just absolutely knock your socks off, open your eyes like you’ve seen a ghost, or are just plain and simple, difficult to grasp.

  
   OK, most everybody knows I’m a high school football lover beyond belief. Yes, that’s me, the 1000 Yard Guy…..the man that wants to have his final services on a football field at night under the lights. A man so into the sport, it seems like going to Heaven just to stand on a sidelines and witness a game………….that would be me, and I just talked to a high school running back that may be something just short of “Hard-To-Believe.”
  
   In this era of lightening fast events, sometimes people just don’t slow it down long enough to comprehend what a young man like Schuykill Haven running back, Zach Barket, has accomplished in his career, especially this past season.

The Town & School That Produced Nation’s Top Rusher      
   Schuylkill Haven is a school in Eastern Pennsylvania with around 155 boys in high school, around the size of say, an Aurora (Nebr.), but they compete in Pennsylvania’s smallest class (A). Although the town is only 100 miles from Philadelphia and a mere 3 hour drive away from New York City, it has that “small town” feel like so many Nebraska towns have. That feeling of being safe, and raising a family without the fear of being swallowed up by the thought of what the “big city surroundings” can create. And from this setting in the Appalachian Mountain, coal mining area of Pennsylvania, lives a RB like none I have seen for a ton of Friday Nights!

Zach Barket’s Unbelievable Stats   
   Let me lay some stats on you that the 5-11, 205 lb. Zack Barket has etched in the record books, and I’m not talking just Pennsylvania record books. Check out these stats and records all you football wizards:
  
Zach Barket By the Numbers

 

Season & Career Statistics………….National Ranking

4,187 rushing yards in 2008.……………………….2008 national rushing leader

4,187 rushing yards in a single season………..3rd best in high school history

66 Touchdowns in 2008 ………………………..4th best in high school history

Most TD’s per game per season –4.7.………..5th best in high school history

299 rushing yards per game…………………..5th best in high school history

8,325 career rushing yard……………………..19th best in high school history

    Not even the legendary Ken Hall of Sugarland, Tx., who rushed for 11,232 yards in his career could match Barket’s single season output of ’08. Barketis rubbing elbows on the national record charts with legendary players like Emmitt Smith, Herschel Walker, Shaun Alexander, and is well ahead of Oklahoma’s Billy Sims in career yards and backs like Gale Sayers, Barry Sanders, and Adrian Peterson are not even on the radar near his totals from this past season or his career–no sir!  And to boot Zach Barket started on Schuylkill Haven’s varsity the 7th game of his freshman season and every game after that and NEVER missed finishing one of them.

   The kid is like the Energizer Bunny, just keeps going and going and going….. The pieces I have watched on Barket are nothing short of amazing. Long Touchdown runs in every game, runs that make him look like he is nearly impossible to stop one-on-one, far above the competition.    

   Barket’s Schuylkill Haven team played in 14 games this past fall, advancing to the State Semi-Final before falling to Steelton-Highspire 20-9.

Barket’s Coach Sheds Light On the Phenom
   Zach Barket’s coach, Mike Farr, said he is one of the most durable, football smart, runners he has ever coached.   And when I asked Coach Farr about his running style, his answer was “Zach is never concerned about the first defender he encounters. “He is always looking ahead (downfield) for the next player and how to avoid him.”   I must admit–in astonishment–that when Coach Farr uttered “He’s [Zach] NOT concerned about the first tackler,” it brought me to full attention. I’m thinking WHAT?   When I questioned Barket he simply stated:

“I know I will get by the first tackler, I KNOW it. I average 10 yards a carry, and I WILL get past the initial contact.”       Zach Barket 

  

   This 60 year old football guy has watched so many games and film I lost count 20 years ago; yet, I have no answer for this one.    Is it the fact most college teams are implementing the “spread” offense and need blinding 4.3 speed? It all has me baffled, friends.  

   Barket is a whiz academically though, so he’ll probably take a full ride to a Patriot League school like Lehigh, or some IVY League school.

   Is he disappointed? Zach says no, just wants to play a little more football and get a quality education. But I’ll tell you something:

  “If some D-1 facility fails to give this young phenom an opportunity, it will be one of the most humongous oversights in many years of Friday Nights, remember where you heard that”

   Oh yes…………………just in case your curiosity is aroused, I just happen to have some footage of this super runner, the national rushing leader evidently not enough souls know about, and I can direct you to a coach who has a lot more! Just remember the name…. Zach Barket-Schuylkill Haven High School, Pa   

Now watch the kid do his record setting thing: