Heath Hutcheson, Campus Carrier sports editor

In 2020, Mason Kinsey became the first Berry College student to receive an offer to play professional football. In his time at Berry as a wide receiver, Kinsey helped the Vikings to win four consecutive Southern Athletic Association (SAA) championships. His career receiving yardage and receiving touchdowns set SAA records. After spending a few months flip-flopping between the Tennessee Titans and the New England Patriots in 2020, Kinsey eventually settled and became part of the Titan’s active roster in 2021. 

Given Berry’s status as a Division III school, while also considering that Berry has only had a football team since fall 2013, this was a rare event. However, he is hopefully not the last one to get such an opportunity at Berry.

“We’ve had athletes early in the program that were exceptional athletes,” Director of Athletics Angel Mason said. “They had the key elements of what it takes to be in the pros, but I don’t think that we’ve had any others that had the amount of visibility necessary to do it.”

There are multiple methods through which college athletes can get noticed to play in the professional league. Oftentimes, athletes are hoping to get noticed by NFL scouts, people whose job is to seek out and evaluate the talent of both college and high school players, which is something Mason went into more detail on.

“Scout events can help with giving our athletes some visibility,” Mason said. “We have one coming up that some people are going to attend, which doesn’t mean they’ll get drafted necessarily, but it gives them a start so that scouts will keep an eye on them as they continue to play and progress.”

Scout events don’t just involve scouts coming to watch athletes play. They will often watch film and interview coaches in order to get a better understanding of the players that they are surveying.

“Some particularly great athletes will get invites to the NFL Scouting Combine, which is the place where individual skill sets are tracked and written down,” Mason said. “They’re using data to determine their success in the NFL.”

The NFL Scouting Combine, which occurs in February takes place in Indianapolis. At the event, NFL scouts, coaches and managers all oversee a variety of physical and mental tests for college football players. As mentioned previously, the event is invitation only and they are essentially the final exam for the athletes who are most determined to play professionally.

A variety of factors play into how coaches seek out potential players. Recruiting scouts will often gravitate towards bigger schools for a larger sampling of athletes, however connections can also play a huge factor into these types of decisions. Coaches who have good relationships with others in the industry can contact the right people to help get a player’s foot in the door, but exceptions can be found everywhere especially when it comes to the different divisions.

“I would say that 50% of Division I athletes are playing with the thought that they have a chance to possibly go professional if they can do all the right things, get the right visibility, and if they stay injury free,” Mason said. “In contrast, I’d say probably less than 5% of Division III student athletes ever play their given sport professionally, but you always find a handful that do, and Mason is the first at Berry to do so, but not at all the only one.”