New AD shows great potential

by Tim Gilmour

Anita Barker, who came to Chico in 1990, was made athletic director this year. With Barker, bias and favoritism go out the window because the student-athlete is her first objective. Her personable character matched with her extreme dedication makes her a very valuable asset to this, or any other, university.

      Ø   The person inside

      Ø   Woman in a "man's world"

Barker came to Chico in 1990 when a job opportunity arose for her husband Scott Barker as Chico State’s head athletic trainer, with Anita as assistant trainer. In 1995, she split time between being a trainer and doing administrative work. She became the associate athletic director in 1998, the interim athletic director in 2002 and the official athletic director in 2005.

The person inside

Aside from her desk, Chico State Athletic Director Anita Barker’s office contains a round table with several chairs. This fits Barker’s profile as a people person.

Around 20 of them were in Anita Barker’s office on Nov. 7, 2005, to listen to the phone call announcing that the women’s soccer team had made it to the regional playoffs.

Moments like this are what Barker loves about her job.

“It’s a very people job,” Barker said. “Actually, I have to sit behind a desk more than I wish I did.”

Prescott “Puck” Smith, head coach of the men’s basketball team, considers Barker a real professional in everything she does, including the honest way she deals with people.

“I think just that fact has enabled her to assimilate into a leadership role and to perform in an outstanding manner,” Smith said.

Growing up on a dairy farm in a small town called Batavia in upstate New York, Barker also finds it easy to enjoy the small town atmosphere Chico has to offer.

“You’re situated in a place where you’ve got access to the mountains, you’ve got access to the ocean, you’ve got access to the big cities,” Barker said. “I like the rural nature of where we are, but it’s also a city in the middle of all that.”

Having never been a coach at any level and never being a “stand-out” sports player, she has had to earn respect from others in showing she can do the job, Barker said.

In fact, she thinks coming up “through the trenches” has turned out to be an advantage for her.

“I didn’t come out of a sport, specifically,” Barker said. “One of my strengths is that I am capable of seeing the department as a whole department and not focusing on the strengths of one particular sport over another one.”

Her husband thinks the same.

“She has intimate knowledge and expertise in every single one of our programs and knows how they all intertwine and interact with each other so I think that’s been a real strength of hers,” Scott Barker said.

Woman in a “man’s world”

Anita Barker is also one of the few female athletic directors in collegiate sports. In all of the NCAA Division II, only 15 percent (42 of 281) of the athletic directors are women, said Jennifer Alley of the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators in an e-mail.

Barker isn’t preoccupied with this statistic, but it is something she keeps in mind as she goes about doing her job.

“I don’t like to consider myself as a pioneer or somebody that’s paving the way for other people,” Barker said. “But I do feel like I have a responsibility to prove to people that I’m capable of doing the job. And hopefully that will get other women to aspire to be in the role.”

Smith thinks Barker is more than capable of performing well.

“We’re very fortunate to have someone of her caliber as our athletic director,” Smith said. “I think she’s done a lot and is going to continue to do great things here at Chico State.”

Barker aspires to do this by making decisions based on what is best for the student-athlete.

“I think that the AD’s job is to have a vision for the entire program that fits into the university’s mission, follows the NCAA rules and provides a great experience for our student-athletes,” Barker said. “I do care about the student-athlete experience. Ultimately, that’s my guiding light.”

Back to top

_______________________________________________________