Three years ago, a lanky freshman showed up for high school football practice at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark.
He had never played football before, and, at 6-foot-4, he looked a lot like a basketball player – which, in fact, he was. But as a new student in his first year at a new school, Neal Barlow figured football would be the best way to get acquainted with his new classmates.
“I just used it to meet people,” said Barlow, recently reached by cell phone, “so I’d know some people on the first day of school.”
Three years later, having developed into one of the state’s top receivers, the move seems to have worked out favorably.
And then some.
As a junior last season – just his third year in the sport – Barlow caught 81 passes for 1,164 yards and 11 touchdowns for Pulaski Academy, which reached the Class 5A state quarterfinals before losing in the final minutes to eventual state champion Greenwood.
In the process, he caught the eye of a number of major programs. Prior to committing orally to Kansas University last week, where he is the first receiver commitment in the Class of 2009, he had received offers from Missouri, home-state Arkansas, Tulsa and North Carolina, according to the recruiting site Rivals.com.
Until recently, however, all signs suggested Barlow would follow in the family footsteps as a college basketball player.
His father, Jeb, had played basketball for Dean Smith at North Carolina in the 1980s. There, he’d been a part of the Tar Heels’ 1982 national championship team while rooming with a skinny 6-foot-6 kid who would go on to have a pretty decent professional career in Chicago, picking up a few NBA titles and a pretty neat nickname – “Air” – along the way: Michael Jordan.
Like his dad, Barlow grew up immersed in the sport, attending Roy Williams’ camps, touring the AAU circuit and attending Tar Heels games whenever possible.
He still plays basketball and has received multiple scholarship offers from smaller schools, but he will begin to turn his concentration toward football.
“Basketball’s always been natural to me,” said Barlow. “But football’s getting more and more natural.”
Pulaski Academy head coach Kevin Kelley has grand expectations for the now-6-7, 190-pound receiver.
“He’s got a little mean streak in him,” said Kelley, who predicts Barlow will finish his senior season with 1,700-1,800 yards receiving. “He goes across the middle. You want him to block, he’ll block hard. What really surprised me is he’s a good run-after-the-catch guy.”
Despite his height and subsequent comparisons to Missouri’s 6-6 tight end Chase Coffman, Barlow has been told by KU’s coaches they expect him to play receiver for the Jayhawks.
And although he’s far from a finished product – strength seems to be one area for improvement, and Barlow said he plans to begin a specialized weight-training program following the football season – the consensus seems to be that Barlow possesses all the tools necessary to be a force at the next level.
“His upside potential (is huge),” Kelley said. “He’s still really raw. He can still work a lot and improve on his route-running.
“But it’s not like he’s maxed out his potential.”
