Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Barnett got work ethic from mother
If it was at all possible, Eagles first-round draft pick Derek Barnett would be home for Mothers Day.
For Barnett, the next best thing to being there is spending the Hallmark Holiday working his way through rookie camp.
Barnett’s mother, Christine, constantly labored to pay for her son to attend Brentwood Academy and support his other two siblings. It’s fitting that he should be working on this day. His mother in Nashville, Tenn. will understand.
“Yes, sir,” Barnett said. “She laid the foundation.”
Barnett is building his own foundation with the Eagles. You don’t want to know his 40-yard dash time. He’s not a natural athlete.
With an appetite for hard work,
a high motor and 10-inch hands of stone, Barnett (63, 259) compensates for a lack of size and pure speed with power and preparation, the latter a product of his disciplined upbringing.
Eagles player personnel chief Joe Douglas raved about Barnett’s big first step and his ability to finish. They’re qualities Barnett developed on his way to breaking the late great Reggie White’s all-time sacks record at Tennessee. You know what they say about every journey beginning with the first step.
“Just over and over and over, repping it in practice” Barnett said. “From high school to college I got a lot of good practice. It’s also having good eyes. I’m looking at the ball and also at the (offensive) tackle, as well. I have good peripheral vision.”
Barnett registered 59 tackles, including 13 sacks and 16 stops for loss last year with the Vols, who moved him up and down the line. He also recorded 16 quarterback hurries, five pass breakups, two forced fumbles and one interception. That’s a lot of wreckage for 13 games.
Another thing about Barnett is he listens. When coaches and assorted player personnel types addressed the rookies and select veterans at camp, they tried to stress urgency, as in not wasting the opportunity.
“You’ve got to do everything hard that you do,” is the way Barnett interpreted it. “Every practice, every time you’re on the field, somebody’s watching.”
A lot of prospects never grasp the old eye-in-the-sky concept. A lot of prospects let doubt creep in. Barnett seems different.
The last thing Barnett expected to work on during the rookie camp was special teams play. But there he was lining up and learning how to block on punt team next to linebacker Don Cherry, the Villanova product bidding to make the squad after spending last year on the practice squad.
“If they need me to play that role, I will,” Barnett said. “I didn’t know they were going to ask me too. So I was a little thrown off. But I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to do anything on the field.”
That willingness to do whatever it takes, in part, was passed down from Barnett’s mother. She kept the family fed, and educated.
Barnett, who in a very short time will sign a lucrative pro contract, would like his mother to let go of work and enjoy a life of leisure. What better gift to give the mom who not only paid to get you into a gifted high school, but drove you there each weekday “about 6:50 a.m.
“It was about 15, 20 minutes depending on traffic,” Barnett said. “And then she would go work.”
Barnett says he’s “trying” to get his mother to retire but “she still wants to continue to work, she wants to get her pension and that’s what she’s going to do.”
Work is what the Barnetts do.
Ten years from now, Derek Barnett hopes to be saying the same thing.