Kennett’s Shay Barker is following in his older brother’s footsteps, one kick at a time

Shay Barker wouldn’t describe his relationship with his older brother Ryan as instant best friends. They fought as children and were competitive with each other, but Shay secretly wanted to do whatever his big brother was doing.

“I was kind of like a crybaby as a kid, and he was the one who just found that super annoying,” said Shay, three years younger than Ryan. “We would get in a lot of fights and stuff. But I’m a lot more mature now. I don’t really get upset about things. I think that’s probably the biggest reason why we’re so close now: We connect on a different level than we used to.”

Part of their connection also stems from the bond that the two Chester County natives share in the same sport.

Ryan is the starting kicker at Penn State. The redshirt sophomore, once a preferred walk-on, is now on scholarship. Shay, a senior at Kennett High School, will also head to a high-major program to kick and punt next fall. He earned a scholarship offer to Syracuse and made his pledge in June.

Ryan is considered one of the best to come through Kennett’s program. He holds the school record for longest field goal (45 yards) and was the first in program history to play Division I football. With the Nittany Lions this season, Ryan’s longest field goal is 49 yards, and he ranks eighth on Penn State’s all-time list in extra-point percentage (98.6%), while carrying the top percentage (86.7%) in field goals made in program history.

Shay felt he had high expectations to live up to. He has been compared to Ryan before. But Shay brushed those comments to the side because the only way to silence those remarks is on the gridiron.

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The 6-foot-2, 190-pounder is ranked among the top 10 high school kickers in the country, according to 247Sports. He has kicked field goals as far as 63 yards in practice, and his in-game career-long is 44 yards. So far, Shay has made 8 of 10 field goal attempts for a 7-2 Kennett team.

“Kicking has brought us closer than I ever thought we would be,” Ryan Barker said. “It’s such an individualized thing that we’re both trying to work just as hard as each other to get better at whatever we need to improve on, and to be able to have each other there for the mental and physical aspect, it’s just awesome. I love helping him. I love coaching him, and I can see that he’s listening.”

The Barkers grew up in a soccer family.

Their mother, Sally, used to visit her parents’ native England during the holidays. In the early days of their relationship, her future husband came along. The two decided to go to a championship match a tier below the Premier League, and “my jaw hit the floor,” Chris Barker said.

From the atmosphere to the game itself, Barker was hooked and became a supporter of Manchester United. The Barkers even named Ryan after Ryan Giggs, one of the most decorated footballers of all time, who spent the majority of his career with United.

And it didn’t take long for Ryan Barker to pick up the sport.

“We have video of Ryan barely walking but kicking a soccer ball,” his father said. “Ryan went on to achieve a lot of success in soccer. We thought that was going to be the pathway. We thought that soccer would be their ticket to maybe a scholarship in college. But little did we know that there’s an influx of Europeans now in the American collegiate soccer system, and it became pretty clear early on that it was going to be a lot more competitive for our boys to earn a scholarship, let alone play at a high level.”

Both brothers started soccer around age 3. They played for the Delaware Rush Football Club in Hockessin and the Southern Chester County Soccer Association in Kennett Square. However, before Ryan entered high school, he sat on the idea of kicking in football.

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One day in the summer, he asked his father to drop him off at Kennett’s football field. He brought a football and tried to kick a field goal. After each attempt, he would jog over to the ball to do it again. A custodian at the school saw Ryan and went to find coach Lance Frazier to tell him, “‘There’s a freshman on the field kicking 50-yard field goals,’” Frazier recalled.

“I’m like, ‘Get out of here, that’s not possible,’” said Frazier, in his eighth season as Kennett’s head coach. “I go up there and I see this tall, slender kid. I can hear him before I can see him, because he’s kicking the [stuff] out of the ball. … I knew he was going to have to make a really big decision here in the future: Is he a soccer player or is he a football player?”

Through three years, Ryan played on Kennett’s soccer team and kicked for the football team. In his senior year, he decided to put his full commitment into kicking. He had some interest from smaller soccer programs to play collegiately, but he wanted to go Division I.

Football could give him that opportunity.

“That was probably one of the most difficult decisions that I ever had to make for myself,” Ryan said. “Just in terms of soccer being my first love and playing it for 17 years. … When I realized I could potentially play Division I football, that was kind of the main factor in my decision.”

Shay’s journey was a bit different. He started to fall out of love with soccer in the eighth grade. Due in part to a growth spurt, Shay had patellar tendinitis in his knees, which made it painful to run. He decided to try kicking as a freshman while learning alongside his brother, then a senior.

“He had seen how fun it was for his brother to play on Friday nights and to be part of the football team at school,” their mother said. “I think he was really excited to join [Ryan] and kind of be his understudy.”

Kicking came naturally to Shay, but he was uncertain what he wanted from the sport. Then, something changed.

During his junior year, Shay competed in a few camps and showcases through Kohl’s Kicking, a program for athletes who play specialized positions of kicker, punter, and long snapper to gain exposure to college coaches. He had a rough showing during the January showcase, which led him to question whether this was what he wanted to do.

“Growing up, Shay always wanted to go to hang out with his friends,” his mother said. “He wanted to play this sport, this club. Last winter, he said, ‘I think I’m going to try to play basketball my senior year.’ [Chris and I] would look at each other like, ‘What is he talking about?’ He just could not say no. … The biggest question mark was maybe not whether he could do it, but whether he would choose to do it because of the sacrifice.”

That performance fueled his desire to get better.

Shay began seeing a personal trainer to get stronger and sought out advice from Ryan, who reminds his younger brother that “the only kick that matters is the next one.”

In June, Shay attended a camp at Syracuse, where he won the field goal competition and backed up to about 58 yards. He also was a finalist in the kickoff competition.

A few days later, Syracuse came calling to offer Shay a full ride.

“They saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself,” Shay said. “I was kind of an underdog a lot of my career. I just got in the right mental space and did what I needed to do. … I’m honored to have this opportunity, especially coming from a small school like Kennett, where not many kids get these kinds of opportunities. I just want to make the most of it.”

And even when Ryan and Shay aren’t together, they are still competing.

Last year, when Penn State faced Southern California on Oct. 12, Ryan hit the game-winning field goal in overtime to secure a 33-30 win for the Nittany Lions. Later that evening, Shay hit a career-long 41-yard field goal against Unionville.

“That was probably one of the proudest and special moments for us as parents,” their father said. “Both our boys, at their various levels, did something quite remarkable on the same day.”

Shay has hopes of surpassing Ryan’s program record. Last weekend, he broke his career-long with a 44-yard field goal against Avon Grove. He told his big brother about those aspirations and has his support.

“Ever since I went to college, Shay is finally able to find his identity and what he brings to the table in terms of football,” Ryan said. “It’s great seeing him succeed. He, without a doubt, has the capability to beat that record, so I hope that he gets that opportunity.”

Frazier believes Ryan and Shay could be the next brother duo to kick in the NFL.

The two already have Sept. 4, 2027, circled on their calendars, when the Nittany Lions host the Orange at Beaver Stadium. This journey isn’t what Shay would have expected, he said, but kicking has given him the chance to play college sports, while forming a lifelong bond with his brother.

“It’s definitely something I don’t take for granted,” he added. “I wouldn’t be here without Ryan.”