Feb. 26-March 4

In case this is your first Friday Wrap, for the last month, we’ve been in the planning stages for our 13th annual event, the 2022 ITL Combine Seminar presented by TEST Football Academy and Agent Live 360. It took place Wednesday, and we’re pretty excited about what took place outside and inside Room 125 of the Indiana Convention Center.

First, a “thank you” goes out to everyone who attended. With the NFLPA having held its annual seminar virtually the week before the combine, we went in knowing hundreds of agents who might have come to the seminar on a normal year wouldn’t be there. We guessed that we’d have a crowd of 50 tops, maybe many fewer. Instead, we were really encouraged to see that about 150 people from all over the game showed up Wednesday. Dozens of NFL scouts showed up, more than erasing the absence of agents. By the time we kicked off the festivities, the hallway outside the room was a busy place, and it stayed that way for the better part of an hour. It was wonderful to see so many people from across the business stop by to offer their congratulations to all the winners.

We join them in those congratulations. We got plenty of kind words from people who expressed their appreciation for our support of scouting, but all we do is provide a platform. If scouts and executives don’t make their voices heard by voting for their peers and recognizing them for their exploits, there’s no awards and no show. We are just the conduit for that. We are proud to offer a platform for recognizing excellence in the industry, and feel fortunate to be the first ones to do so.

We also want to express our gratitude to Ric and Sam Serritella and their team, who produced the event, as well as special volunteers Syrus Amirian and Britton Mann, two members of the first-ever CGSU class of aspiring NFL scouts who showed up in Indianapolis and helped with the show. We don’t have the power to place Syrus and Britton in front offices, but we know that any teams who give them a shot won’t be disappointed.

Here’s a rundown of the awards and presentations made Wednesday night.

Best NFL Draft 2021: The first award we ever developed to salute the industry, and the only trophy handed out to a team for its efforts on the previous draft day, was presented by ITL’s Neil Stratton. 

  • The winner: The Denver Broncos (who took 31 percent of the vote) held off the Miami Dolphins (22 percent) and the rest of the field, which included the Chiefs, Chargers, Steelers and Patriots. Broncos GM George Paton accepted the award on the team’s behalf.
  • The past winners: The Saints won the first award for the team’s work in the ’17 draft. The Colts won the next year for their haul in the ’18 draft, followed by the Niners for ’19 and the Bucs for ’20. 
  • The quote: “It’s hard to believe you win an award when you win seven games, but we will take it. But it’s really not about the award, it’s about the scouts. I think we all know that.”

Eugene E. Parker Award for Lifetime Service to the agent industry: Denver-based Peter Schaffer of Authentic Athletix and VaynerSports’ Brandon Parker, son of the award’s namesake, presented this accolade that goes to a retired contract advisor who represented the game and the profession with grace and honor.

  • The winner: Angelo Wright, founder of SportsWest Football and a contract advisor since 1992. Among his former clients are Don Griffin, Tim McKyer, Pat Williams, Sam Adams and many others. Wright, who passed away in 2021, is our first posthumous winner, and his brother, Ray, accepted the trophy on his behalf. 
  • The past winners: Ralph Cindrich of Cindrich and Co. won the inaugural award in 2019. Ray Anderson, formerly of Octagon and now the Director of Athletics at Arizona State, took home the award in 2020, followed by Mike Sullivan, also formerly of Octagon as well as Steinberg Sports. Both Anderson and Sullivan have also held jobs in NFL front offices.   
  • The quote: “Anybody who knew Angelo would know this is favorite time of the year, the combine, so it’s very timely . . . I know Angelo would be very excited.” – Ray Wright

C.O. Brocato Memorial Award for Lifetime Service to NFL Scouting: For the third straight year – and second year via video – Brocato’s daughter, Becky, presented the award, which goes to an NFL evaluator who has won the respect of his peers despite never operating in the limelight or holding a director-level position with a team. 

  • The winner: Mark Gorscak, a college scout with the Steelers since 1995, took home the prize. 
  • The past winners: The inaugural winner was Bears Executive Scout Jeff Shiver, followed last year by Seahawks personnel executive Alonzo Highsmith, both of whom were present for this year’s award presentation.
  • The quote: “I think people can be trained to go ahead and look at talent and grade them, but the thing C.O. did so well is build relationships, and that’s what this business is all about.”

2021 BART List: After NFL scouts and executives selected the top 10 scouts in each conference with their votes last September, we promised that all 20 would be recognized at our annual seminar. 

  • The winners: Starting with the NFC, they were Tokumbo Abanikanda, Falcons; Breck Ackley, Bears; Tariq Ahmad, 49ers; John Dorsey, Lions; Alonzo Highsmith, Seahawks; Aaron Hineline, Seahawks; Jeff Ireland, Saints; Trent Kirchner, Seahawks; Ted Monago, Rams; and Jon-Eric Sullivan, Packers. For the AFC, winners were David Blackburn, Ravens; Ed Dodds, Colts; Alonzo Dotson, Jets; Terrance Gray, Bills; James Liipfert, Texans;Jamie Moore, Colts; Johnathon Stigall, Jets; Matt Terpening, Colts; Matt Winston, Dolphins; and Eliot Wolf, Patriots. We were excited to welcome Ackley, Ahmad, Highsmith, Hineline, Ireland, Kirchner and Monago (NFC) and Blackburn, Dodds, Dotson, Liipfert, Moore, Terpening and Wolf. All of them were able to reconfigure their schedules to stop by and pick up their plaques in person pre-seminar. Ackley, Ahmad, Blackburn, Highsmith, Ireland, Liipfert and Monago even stuck around long enough to be presented their plaques during the seminar. 
  • Return engagement: Ahmad, Dodds, Ireland, Highsmith, Moore and Terpening are no strangers to the ITL seminar. Dodds, Moore and Terpening came to the seminar as part of the Colts’ delegation when the team won the Best Draft Award in 2019; Ahmad attended in 2020 when the Niners won the same award; Ireland accepted the first-ever Best Draft Award in 2018; and Highsmith “attended” virtually when he accepted the Brocato Award last year.
  • Thank you!: This year’s BART List Awards were presented by Oneonta, NY-based Curley Wealth Management of Wells Fargo Advisors. Principal Ed Curley presented the awards (and a little swag) to each of the winners.

Awards were just part of the evening, however. Since our first seminar in 2010, we’ve made education a big part of the program, as former speakers included former NFL scouts and officials like Mike Hagen, Ray Farmer, Phil Emery, Matt Manocherian, James Kirkland and Bob Morris. We’ve had panels on scouting careers and analytics; writers and media personalities (Joe Schad, Rob Rang and Rand Getlin); all-star directors (Justin VanFulpen and Jose Jefferson); an agent who cheated and wrote a book about it (Josh Luchs); and a major symposium for all NFL agents in 2019.

This year, our goals were a bit more humble. Stratton presented the results of ITL’s annual salary survey after the awards were handed out, and the news was overall pretty good, perhaps in part due to the survey itself. Newer scouts are making more money than ever, according to our respondents, and scouts with at least 10 years in the game are, by and large, making $125,000 per year, at minimum. For a more detailed look at the results, check out Stratton’s weekly blog at Succeed in Football.

We wrapped the evening with a word from two of our sponsors. Kevin Dunn, owner of TEST Football Academy, gave a brief overview of modern combine prep and the work TEST is doing to better prepare today’s athletes for the prospect of the NFL Draft and the rigors of the game. Pittsburgh’s Kenny Pickett, who may be the first quarterback selected in this spring’s draft, is among TEST’s clients this spring under QB coach Tony Racioppi. We wrapped the show with brief remarks by Trevor Swenson, developer of Agent Live 360, the first software designed specifically for sports agents. A growing number of top firms are using AL360, and several others requested demos from Swenson and his team this week. Swenson, a name, image and likeness expert, discussed the difference between endorsements and traditional NIL deals. 

We hope everyone came away from the evening excited about their place in the football business. We always find the night to be a great chance to renew acquaintances and celebrate the game behind the game. If you’d like to watch the entire presentation, from start to finish, click here. If you didn’t make it, we hope you can next year, when it will be even bigger and better.

In the meantime, here’s a look at what else we saw, heard, read and said in a busy week for the college and pro football business.

Catching Up: Roylin Bradley, 43, spent four seasons as an area scout with the 49ers. Today, he lives and works not too far from ITL’s home offices in Houston. We caught up with him last month.

  • Where are you living and what are you doing now?: “I’m down here in Texas City, pretty much my hometown, near La Marque (where I grew up). I’ve been doing logistics and safety in the area for seven years. I’m a contractor, and the company is ITS Conglobal. We contract with BNSF Railroad.” 

  • Do you miss the job? What do you miss most?: “Yeah, I definitely miss it. Going to practice, watching tape. Talking ball, being in the meetings, the commonality with all the other scouts. It’s just familiar territory to me, you know?”

  • Do you keep in touch with any of your former colleagues?: “A little bit, but not a lot. I recently talked to (Falcons Assistant Director of College Scouting) Dwaune Jones; I believe he’s with Atlanta now, and he and I were talking about a few ballplayers in the area, wondering what his thoughts were. It’s been an extremely long time, but (Commanders Senior Director of Player Personnel) Eric Stokes, he’s one of my boys. It’s probably been a year since I talked to him.” 

  • Do you go to any live games (HS/college/pro)?: “I go to a few local high school games in the area at La Marque, Texas City and Dickinson. I have a cousin who was a senior this year and he played for Dickinson. He’s the No. 1 tight end in the nation, and he’s going to Texas A&M.” 

  • Are there any players you love to watch and/or feel close to due to your work in the game?: “There’s a couple guys. I like (Bengals QB) Joe Burrow. I like (Browns DE) Myles (Garrett), obviously, because he went to A&M and he kinda played my position, so I watch him a lot. No one in particular, though. I watch it all. We watch TV on the (Amazon Fire TV Stick), so I’m watching all 32 teams.”

Review the latest from other former NFL scouts and executives by accessing our Catching Up archive here. Want to hear from a former scout, or know someone who may be interested in being interviewed? Let us know.

Next week: The combine will be over after this weekend, which means, once again, it’s time to get caught up on things. We owe our readers an Agent Changes for the January-to-February period, as well as a list of Agents by Total Clients. Those will come next week. After skipping last year, we will also provide NFL Combine results sorted by trainer, by the request of some of our combine prep partners. We also have a few last slots to fill in our NFL Combine Grid, and we hope to do that next week. As for the rest, you know the tune: we’ll have Rep Rumblings, we’ll have a blog post for Succeed in Football, and we’ll be ready whenever any changes are made in front offices and we’ll update our Scouting Changes Grid. Enjoy the rest of the workouts, get home, and get ready for pro days. We’ll see you there.