BY KELSEY HOWAT // DEC. 5, 2011 //

When most people first think of Chris Barrow, they think of his size. After all, the sophomore stands 6 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs 280 pounds.

But there’s far more to Barrow than meets the eye.

Chris Barrow, a 26-year-old sophmore on the men’s basketball team, can be heard regularly on the campus radio station. The 6-foot, 7-inch foward often plays soft rock.

The 26-year-old—that’s not a typo!—came to Curry from the U.S. Navy, via Massasoit Community College in Brockton. After he was put on academic probation at Massasoit, Barrow chose to enlist and spent four years serving his country. “I was able to travel to a lot of cool places, like Australia and Dubai,” he said, adding that the Navy is now paying for his education.

Barrow left the Navy in 2008 and worked for a year before returning to college. He said he originally came to Curry to play football, a sport he had never even played during his high school or younger years.

“It was weird. One day someone (in the Navy) asked me if I had ever played football,” Barrow said. “I said no, but he told me it would be a good sport for me to play and I should play.”

And just like that, a football player was born.

In the 2009-2010 school year, Barrow traveled west on a one-year partial football scholarship at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, Mo. But Barrow said he wanted to be closer to family and friends—he’s a native of Brockton—and started to look at schools on the East Coast. That’s when Curry came into his view.

It certainly didn’t take long for those at Curry to notice Barrow. While sitting in the Student Center last year, someone from the men’s basketball team—a squad that was lacking some size—asked him if he’d consider playing. Barrow simply practiced with the team last season, but is now on the active roster as a power forward/center. He doesn’t get much playing time for the Colonels, who were 2-4 (1-1 in conference play) as of Dec. 3. Junior Sedale Jones leads this year’s squad with nearly 19 points per game, followed by sophomore Lambros Papalambros with nearly 14 points per game. Jones, a guard, is the team’s leading rebounder, at slightly more than 5 per game.

When he’s not playing sports or in the classroom, Barrow can be found working in the campus radio station. The communication major said he hopes to have a career in radio.

Lauren Hawkins, a senior resident assistant in 156 House and SCRH, which is where Barrow lives, said he is likely to do great things in his life. “We will know his name in the future,” she said. “He comes off really scary,” Hawkins adds, citing his size. “But he is really nice.”