When you mention Sydney Barker’s name to Jordan High School women’s basketball head coach Janet Robinson, a smile creeps across her face.
When you ask Robinson to describe Barker, who is entering her freshman season for the Tar Heels, she begins with one word: “Special.”
“She prepped in a way that most people wouldn’t,” Robinson told Chapelboro. “Almost like a professional would. The way she warmed up before games. The way she would eat, the time she would eat. She’d make sure there was enough time before a game or workout. It’s rare to find a young person that passionate about basketball.”
Now, Barker will bring that passion to UNC, the alma mater of both of her parents and her dream school since she was a little girl. But she won’t be doing so on an athletic scholarship. Rather, Barker will be the first walk-on to enroll with the women’s basketball program since head coach Courtney Banghart took over in 2019.
Barker had the opportunity to play on scholarship (read: for free) at a host of other schools: UNC-Wilmington, Furman and Wofford, to name a few. With those offers came the promise of more playing time than she’ll likely see in Chapel Hill, at least at first. But there was something about the school down the road that she couldn’t shake.
“Something in my heart has always just loved Carolina,” Barker told Chapelboro. “We grew up being a Carolina family, and I just loved the basketball here — men’s and women’s. Apart from basketball, I thought it was a good school, too – but the basketball always drew me here.”
During Barker’s childhood, the UNC women’s basketball program experienced a complete life cycle: national prominence in 2014 with an Elite Eight appearance when Barker was (brace yourselves) nine years old, the doldrums of a coaching transition, and then prominence again under Banghart. None of the ugly press that came out of the death rattles of the Sylvia Hatchell era shook Barker’s belief: this was still the place for her.
Which meant Barker would get here by any means necessary; even walking on. When she told Banghart of her plan, the head coach was enthusiastic.
Then Banghart called the admissions office.
“They were like, ‘No, you don’t get to say who gets in as a walk-on,’” she said. “So we got on a Zoom with her and her mom and her dad, and I had to look them in the eye and say, ‘I can’t guarantee she’ll get into Carolina. She’ll find out in the middle of January.’”
The risk was obvious: if Barker were to hold out hope of getting into UNC as a walk-on, she would not be able to sign a national letter of intent somewhere else. She was putting all her money on the light blue slice of the roulette wheel.
“Syd looked me right back in the eye and said, ‘It’s always been my dream to wear a Carolina uniform. So I’m gonna invest in myself,’” Banghart remembered.
Barker had made the most consequential decision of her young life. Then came the hard part.
“There were some stressful waiting months,” said Robinson. “But I told her, ‘You’ll get in. What other kid comes in like you do? What other kid hits the books like you do? You have the grades. You have the skill. Now we just have to wait.’”
That wait finally came to an end during — of all things — a bus ride to an away game. Barker received the good news on her phone and was immediately mobbed by her teammates. Robinson couldn’t participate in the celebration; she was the one driving the bus.
“I knew it was a ton of weights lifted off her shoulders,” Robinson said. “But deep down, I never thought she wouldn’t get in.”
Perhaps it truly became real for Sydney Barker on her senior night at Jordan High School. The Falcons were playing cross-town rival Northern in what would be an emotional game regardless of who was in the crowd. Then the woman in the light blue shirt walked in the gym.
“I had no idea that she was coming,” Barker said of Banghart’s visit. “I think it was a few minutes into the game… I saw the little blue polo with the little UNC logo. And then I just had fun with it.”
“She just took over effortlessly,” recalled Robinson. “Every shot went straight through the net. And I remember leaning over and I said, ‘Is that the coach from UNC? She’s finally here to see what I’ve been getting to see!”
When the time finally came to pull the future Tar Heel from the game, Barker, ostensibly a point guard, had produced a jaw-dropping stat line: 46 points.
The gym at Jordan High School in Durham, where Sydney Barker starred before coming to UNC.
It makes sense, then, that Barker had long since earned a nickname from Robinson, her teammates, and practically every other Jordan Falcon student who had seen her play: Hot Sauce.
“She cooked a lot of people,” said Robinson, clearly proud of her work.
Hot Sauce is now simmering in the confines of Carmichael Arena instead of Jordan High School, and Robinson admitted she’s trying to give her protégé some space (not too much, though – her office still has a poster of Barker on the wall). Banghart, on the other hand, can’t get enough of her.
“When you come and watch our practice, you will not think she’s a walk-on,” she said. “She’s a little bit undersized, but so am I. And I’m doing alright.
“She’s a really special addition. She’s adored by her teammates. And this Carolina blue means something to her.”
Barker picked a heck of a time to arrive at her dream school. Carolina will begin the 2023-24 season with perhaps the highest expectations of the Banghart era, and will have a gauntlet of a schedule to prove itself. Robinson is planning to come to as many games as she can, but Barker’s support system at Jordan runs far beyond her old coach.
A poster of Sydney Barker inside Jordan High School women’s basketball head coach Janet Robinson’s office.
“When it finally came, where she was going, people were excited,” Robinson said. “People were genuinely excited here. Teachers, her teammates. That had to feel really good. To know a student body is behind you, supporting something that you want.”
As if to prove this point, Robinson stepped out of the office and pulled aside a young Jordan athlete.
“Who’s Hot Sauce?” she asked.
The student didn’t miss a beat.
“Sydney Barker.”
Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications
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