Heading into the NFL football season, this month’s Young Alumni Spotlight features Terrell Barnes, a School of Arts and Sciences graduate from 2014. A member of Chi Psi Fraternity, Terrell is part of a long tradition of Scarlet Knights in the NFL, and he does it from the sidelines as a key member of the Minnesota Vikings logistical staff.

Terrell transferred into Rutgers from DeVry University and is living out his lifelong dream of being an equipment manager in the NFL. It is a position he obtained through hard nosed effort and a little bit of luck. The hard work part was all grind. “I started working for Rutgers football while I was at Devry” he says, and did everything he could for the program. “A typical day for me in college would be to wake up at 5, get ready for the day, 6 o’clock leave to get into work….video, recruiting, ops, and definitely my bread and butter was equipment managing” After six hours of work, when everything was set up for practice, he would get on the bus, take his classes, and spend the evening with his fraternity or attend a fraternity event. This would then be followed by working his night job at The Olive Branch until “2-3 in the morning, and then start the day over again.” This was the hard nosed effort but the luck he needed to get to his current position took a little bit of fraternity networking, and a very fortuitous haircut.

“Make friends, not connections…when I talk to people I want to be their friend more than I want to be a connection, and then that pays off over time.”

“One of my [fraternity] brothers knew the Wilfs. His grandfather was the barber for the Wilf family….I gave him my resume and he gave it to his grandfather and then he gave it to Zygi [Wilf, co-owner of the Vikings] and then two months later I get a phone call saying, ‘hey we want to interview you for a full season.’” Terrell’s advice for a student looking to network in college? “Make friends, not connections…when I talk to people I want to be their friend more than I want to be a connection, and then that pays off over time.”

The grind didn’t end in college. Terrell still gets to work around the same time, and spends the day, dawn to dusk, working through a laundry list of tasks from actual laundry and mending of equipment (clothes, uniforms, pads), to setting up the field, handling vendors, and participating in practice. Whether it’s running routes, throwing balls, or putting the logistics together for a road trip, the work doesn’t stop.

He appreciates the opportunity to be friends with the players of the Vikings too. “They’re friends, they’re people. They have regular conversations like everybody else.” As for how Terrell stays connected to his friends and fellow alumni, even with a punishing schedule and a pandemic? He keeps it simple. “I usually call them…my fraternity brothers I talk to on a daily basis. If they don’t respond I know they’re busy, but they always respond later and that’s ok with me.”

And a final word of advice? “Don’t settle for anything less than what you are. Know your worth. Be who you are, and people will gravitate towards you.”