Mount Si star receiver Jonny Barrett verbally commits to play Ivy League football

[Article by contributing writer and owner of Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal, Rhett Workman]

A story which has been part of the local sports conversation the past several weeks has come to a very successful conclusion for one Mount Si High School star athlete, as he has made his mind up on where he’ll be attending college this fall.

Football and basketball player Jonny Barrett received a tremendous amount of interest from schools in the Ivy League, not only because he’s one of the best senior high school football players in the State of Washington, but more importantly because he’s very good academically. Well, after a process which saw him visit one of the interested colleges last weekend, he made his decision public this past Tuesday night as part of the pregame Senior Night ceremonies for he and his Mount Si boys’ basketball teammates.

Barrett took a T-shirt from one of his fellow students in the MSHS student section inside the school’s gymnasium in Snoqualmie prior to the Wildcats’ basketball game with Newport, and that T-shirt was emblazoned with the “Dartmouth Football” logo on the front. He put that T-shirt on and with that, announced he had verbally committed to attend the New Hampshire college. He will officially sign his letter of intent in a couple of weeks on February 3rd. Dartmouth, the college he visited this past weekend, beat out several other universities – including Yale, Princeton and Lafayette from Pennsylvania – for the wide receiver. There were also rumblings early in the process of Pac-12 interest, but that likely was going to be as a so-called “preferred walk-on” as opposed to the scholarship athlete that he will be with Dartmouth.

“When I got there, I fell in love with the place. Coach (Buddy) Teevens, their head coach, is one of the greatest guys on Earth and all their coaches are awesome,” Barrett said. “The family atmosphere made me feel like I was back at home in the Mount Si community.”

Barrett is among a few Wildcat senior football players who have already committed to colleges for next season: quarterback Cale Millen signed a letter of intent with the University of Oregon December 21 during an “early” signing period for football signees and has already graduated from Mount Si and started classes down in Eugene at the UO campus and defensive player R.J. Bell has also committed to attend Shasta College, a junior college in northern California. These three will join a good-sized group of Wildcat football graduates playing at the next level. This fall that list will also include lineman Michael Collins, down at Pomona-Pitzer in California; receiver Alex Rendon, closer to home at Pacific Lutheran; and lineman Chris Schlicting, who will be in his senior year with the defending NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoff runner-up Eastern Washington University.