Scott Barkley:: My name is Scott Barkley. I currently live in Colorado Springs, Colorado and I am a member of the Grinnell College Class of 2000. I’d like to tell a story today about my experience at Grinnell as a student athlete. I came to Grinnell after looking around the country for the schools that would offer the best education possible. That was probably the most important criteria to me. But I was an athlete in high school and relished the opportunity to continue that in college, knowing full well that any big dreams of athletic stardom or even 
Scott Barkley:: playing on the program in any place bigger than Grinnell was silliness. The coaching staff here at Grinnell understood student athletes like that and understood the new need to recruit them, which I thought was a phenomenal experience. It was great to get invited to campus, to be invited to stay with current members of the team that I was looking at and really get a taste of the experience here. When I got here what I found for football two-a-days in August in the hot, Iowa sun and humidity
Scott Barkley:: and middle of summertime when some of my old friends are still back at home relaxing and having a good time, is that I found instantly a big group of new friends and that comradery continued throughout my experience here—through long bus trips to schools in northern Wisconsin, for competitions there. Through wins and losses—while I was here on the football team, we had quite a number of wins relative to some other periods in the program’s history, and lots of success on the track team. The fellowship of the teammates was phenomenal throughout this whole time. And one of my most distinct memories
Scott Barkley:: of sports at Grinnell was not even the competition on the field itself, but it was the beauty of the athletic facilities, both in the fall and in the spring. In the fall when the leaves were turning around the football field and in the spring when the trees were blossoming around the track. Unbelievable place to come and compete. And now ten years later, I look at the new athletic facilities that are just coming to completion and now we have indoor facilities of quality to match the outdoor facilities. And that blows me away. It makes me feel good for the generations of student athletes to come. 
