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FAIRBANKS — Before this school year ends, Barrow High School will have had its first student-athlete sign a National Letter of Intent to play college football.

“I think it’s coming,” Trent Blankenship, superintendent of the North Slope Borough School District, said recently in Barrow. “I don’t know what it will mean for me other than I will be so happy for that kid.”

It most likely will be a kid who decided to play football after Blankenship helped bring the sport to the northernmost high school in the United States two years ago. That same kid very likely will be a pioneer, having played against Delta Junction on a dirt field on Aug. 19, 2006 in the first organized football game above the Arctic Circle.

The same kid, too, will have helped Barrow post a 5-1 record in the Greatland Conference this season to finish in a three-way tie for first place. He also probably played in the 46-18 victory over Houston on a windy, snowy Oct. 3 on the blue artificial turf of Cathy Parker Field in a small schools state quarterfinal, which was the first high school football playoff game above the Arctic Circle.

The same student-athlete probably will have played in the state semifinal game against Kodiak in the Anchorage Football Stadium on Oct. 17, and he was probably a reason that Barrow’s Mark Voss was named the Small Schools Coach of the Year on Sunday.

After signing the college letter, that kid probably will have happy parents, and a happy school district superintendent.

“I’ve had parents come up and say, ‘If it hadn’t been for this (football),” said Blankenship, “my kid wouldn’t have been thinking about college, he wouldn’t be eligible.’”

The 49-year-old Blankenship didn’t bring football to Barrow to garner statewide and national media attention, or to have Jacksonville, Fla., bank account executive and football mom Cathy Parker organize a $500,000 fundraising drive to install a blue artificial turf field about 100 yards from the Arctic Ocean and about a half-mile from the dirt field that the Whalers called home in their inaugural football season of 2006.

He wanted to help lower dropout rates and raise attendance — not only at Barrow High School, but throughout a school district that borders on the Arctic Ocean to the west and Canada to the east, and is about 89,000 square miles, or a little larger than Minnesota. The North Slope Borough School District has only eight schools and about 2,000 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade, but it’s the largest school district in the nation in regards to square miles.

“Attendance is up, especially among boys during the football season,” Blankenship said of Barrow High School. “The school climate is good, discipline is way down and kids don’t get behind in their work.”

“When a lot of these kids get behind, pretty soon the next thing you know is they’re disengaged and they drop out. The dropout rate is down, and all of this is due to the fact that kids have something that they’re going to school for, and they’ve got somebody saying that you’ve got to get your grades up if you want to do this (participate).”

The critics are there like a blitz on a third-down play. They say football at Barrow High School is a waste of money, as the sport costs the district about $180,000 per year, and that includes paying for teams to travel to Barrow for games.

“It’s about scores, it’s some people wanting meat and potatoes and not so many activities for kids,” Blankenship said. “It’s an age-old thing and it’s in every community — it’s an academics versus athletics type of thing, and whether we’ve got too many things for the kids to do now versus before.”

Blankenship, who has been the North Slope Borough School District superintendent for four years after serving as the state schools superintendent in Wyoming, can recite facts and statistics to the critics, but he knows it can have the effect of a punter kicking into a high wind. (That actually happened in the Houston-Barrow playoff. The punted football would hang in the air and then either fall back for a few yards or drop forward for only a couple of yards).

“Generally, the facts are non-determinative when you talk to people like that,” he said. “They have their own perceptions, and there’s nothing you can say factual that’s going to sway them.

“... I think it’s a mistake to think that you can improve student achievement and not improve the climate of the school that the kid experiences.”

Not every student-athlete at Barrow High School is going to play football and not every Whalers football player is going to be on the school’s honor roll. But the fewer dropouts and the higher attendance that the sport has generated is worth the costs in the long run.

Other North Slope communities noticed the effect of the sport at Barrow High School. This fall, 8-man football began at seven village high schools — Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright, Atquasuk, Anaktuvuk Pass, Nuiqsut and Kaktovik — and Hopson Middle School in Barrow.

“It had the same effect as it did at Barrow High School — it changed dropout rates, school discipline ... it’s the closest thing to a silver bullet that I’ve seen,” Blankenship said. “We thought we would try it because the villages wanted it, the kids wanted it.

“It wasn’t rocket science, but guess what? Now the kids feel good about themselves in Wainwright and Point Hope, and wherever.”

Point Hope won 30-22 over Voznesenka of Fritz Creek (near Homer) in the unofficial 8-man state championship game on Oct. 4 at Chugiak High School.

Blankenship recently attended a school district meeting in Wainwright. While he was there, three high school boys honored him in a gridiron way.

One boy hiked a football to another, who handed the ball off to another and the ball carrier ran toward Blankenship to present him the football, which was signed by members of the team.

“And he said ‘Thank you.’ That meant a lot to me,” Blankenship said.

CAMPUS TRAILS: Senior cornerback Jon Rogers, an Eielson graduate, had a 46-yard interception return and two tackles for Central Washington in Saturday’s 34-14 win over Humboldt State in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference football game in Arcata, Calif. Central, which clinched the GNAC title, also got two tackles from Rogers’ brother, Nick, a redshirt freshman safety. Humboldt sophomore tight end Matt Devlin, a Chugiak grad, had five catches for 74 yards, including a 19-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Fellow Chugiak alumnus and junior kicker Kyle Schierholt converted two point-after kicks and punted six times for an average of 42.7 yards ... Senior defensive back Michael Weber from Palmer registered 11 tackles to lead Valley City State in Saturday’s 40-10 win over Dakota State (S.D.) in Valley City, N.D. Sophomore defensive back Coty Beck from Seward contributed seven tackles and forced a fumble and North Pole grad and senior defensive back Charles Spencer had five tackles. Junior linebacker and North Pole alum Cameron Culver contributed two tackles and Marcus Grohman, another junior linebacker from North Pole, and freshman tight end Garrett Jackson from West Valley had a tackle each. Junior tight end Jason Hollett, also from North Pole, had a 25-yard catch.

• Freshman left wing Hunter Bishop of Fairbanks had two assists for Ohio State in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Lake Superior (Mich.) in a Central Collegiate Hockey Association game in Columbus, Ohio ... Junior defenseman Katy Applin of Palmer had a goal and an assist for the Northeastern women in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Connecticut in Storrs, Conn. ... Notre Dame senior goaltender and South Anchorage grad Jordan Pearce registered 18 saves for his fifth career shutout in Friday’s 3-0 win over Sacred Heart (Conn.) in Notre Dame, Ind.

PRO NOTES: Bartlett grad Zackary Bowman’s first National Football League start was bittersweet. The Chicago Bears rookie cornerback recovered a muffed punt for a touchdown and intercepted a pass with 40 seconds left in the game to preserve a 48-41 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday in Chicago. Bowman also sustained a bicep injury during the game and was placed on injured reserve Wednesday — one day after he was named the National Football Conference Special Teams Player of the Week.