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Tennis Coach Drew Barrett Wants You to Take His Cake
In baking circles, Drew Barrett’s like the guy who only goes out on New Year’s Eve and ends up jumping on stage to sing with the band.
For 51 weeks a year he avoids mixing bowls, cake pans and whipped frosting. Outside of occasionally grilling, he doesn’t even cook.
But on that 52nd week, which falls in late August with the start of the school year, the call to bake overtakes. He finds himself awake at three or four in the morning, bleary-eyed, burnt out and buried in batter.
He doesn’t want to bake—he has to—and often battles last-minute stress when ambition struggles with deadline. Because as Davidson College men's head tennis coach, Barrett’s very competitive. After watching his first Cake Race 14 years ago—he wanted in.
Today, he’s mastered his game so well that he usually places as a top seed.
“It’s probably a competition only in my own head, but I want mine to be the first cake picked,” Barrett said. “When you compete, anxiousness becomes the fun—it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about the competition. And every year I want someone to come up with some really cool cake that will make me up my game even more.”
Wednesday’s annual race is a time-honored Davidson tradition where first-year students run a mile for cake. The tradition began in 1930, when the college’s cross-country coach didn’t have enough runners and ordered a race to recruit new talent. The winner got a cake.
Early cakes were rather pedestrian; think one or two layers, round or square, with vanilla or chocolate frosting.
Today many cakes include big, elaborate, artistic creations by bakers from Dining Services to faculty members, bakeries and local elementary school students. Many credit Barrett for elevating the level of competition and making himself a very tough act to beat.
“People go out of their way to dethrone him,” said Sandy Helfgott, Davidson’s director of physical education, recreation and wellness and official Cake Race guardian. A former Davidson resident saw Barrett’s cake one year and said, “I’m going to beat him.” She laughed about it, but it was her mission to get her cake picked before Drew’s.
“She tried for years and never did.”