Two Oklahoma Athletes Receive SEC Community Service Award

Kicker Zach Schmit and runner Gabi Barrra were honored by the Southeastern Conference with a postgraduate scholarship.

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Oklahoma Sooners

By OU Media Relations

NORMAN — The Southeastern Conference announced the male and female Brad Davis Community Service Award Winners for each of its 16 member institutions Thursday, and Gabi Barrera and Zach Schmit were the University of Oklahoma's honorees.

Barrera, Schmit and the 30 winners from the other 15 SEC schools, who will each receive a $7,500 post-graduate scholarship from the league, are now nominees for the Male and Female Brad Davis Community Service Leaders of the Year, which will be announced later this month. The two winners will each receive a $15,000 post-graduate scholarship, provided by the SEC.

Barrera is senior on OU's track & field and cross country teams who will graduate this weekend with a degree in psychology. Schmit was a redshirt senior on OU's football team last fall and graduated in May 2024 with a degree in chemical engineering after 2 1/2 years as the Sooners' starting kicker.

The SEC Community Service Post-Graduate Scholarship is named for former Associate Commissioner Brad Davis. Davis succumbed to cancer on March 2, 2006. He had been a member of the SEC staff since 1988, first serving as an assistant commissioner until 1994 when he was promoted to associate commissioner.

Published May 1, 2025

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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