Chennis Berry spent an entire season sitting through MEAC conference calls, watching reporters fawn over Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson. After South Carolina State won the Celebration Bowl on Saturday with a 40-38 four-overtime thriller over Prairie View A&M, Berry made sure everyone knew he’d been paying attention.
“I keep receipts now,” Berry said after claiming the HBCU national championship. “You know, all through the season when we have those conference calls, nobody was asking me any questions. It was always directed to the two NFL guys. I sit there and get one or two questions, and they get 20 or 30. So, imma say that.”
Coach Chennis Berry after winning the @CelebrationBowl
“I keep receipts 🧾… All through the season when we have those conference calls, nobody was asking me any questions… it was always directed to the two NFL guys… that motivated me” pic.twitter.com/HbEbZQ7LAl
— MTMV Sports Network (@MTMVSN) December 13, 2025
The “two NFL guys” Berry referenced are Vick at Norfolk State and Jackson at Delaware State — the former Philadelphia Eagles teammates who took over MEAC programs in December 2024 and immediately became the faces of the conference. Both entered their first seasons as head coaches with little formal college coaching experience but massive name recognition. The media followed.
“There’s good football coaches that come through HBCUs,” Berry continued. “We can coach because we gotta get out the mud. So imma say that with a proud, proud chest. There’s a lot of really, really good football coaches. And again, I got great relationships with all of them. But I remember. I keep receipts. And that motivated me.”
Berry went 9-3 in his second season at South Carolina State, went undefeated in MEAC play, and won the conference championship. He did it while being treated like background noise during weekly conference calls, as reporters asked Vick and Jackson about everything from their NFL experiences to their coaching philosophies to what it meant to lead HBCU programs.
Meanwhile, Berry — who spent 26 years as an assistant coach before getting his first head coaching job at Benedict College, where he won two Division II national championships before moving to South Carolina State — sat there getting a question or two while the former NFL stars fielded dozens.
“Every day, I’d go to my staff, and I say, ‘Hey, guess they didn’t have a whole lot for me,'” Berry said. “But it might be one or two. Everybody else wants to talk about everything else, so we just fell in love with the process, and that motivates you.”
Jackson had a solid first year at Delaware State, going 8-4 and delivering the program’s first winning season since 2012. The Hornets started 2-0 in MEAC play before losing their final three conference games. Vick’s debut season at Norfolk State went the other way. The Spartans finished 1-11 overall and didn’t win a game in conference play.
To be clear, Berry wasn’t taking shots at Vick and Jackson as coaches or people. He made a point of saying he has great relationships with both of them. But he was absolutely calling out the media for spending an entire season treating him like he didn’t exist while the former NFL guys got all the attention.
It’s not hard to understand why it happened. Vick and Jackson bring star power and name recognition. People want to hear from them. But Berry spent 26 years working as an assistant before getting his shot, won two Division II national championships at Benedict, came back from last year’s Celebration Bowl loss, and just engineered one of the greatest comebacks in the game’s history.
And then he made sure everyone knew he’d been keeping track of who was getting asked what.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.