MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE OFFENSIVE lineman Thomas Perry #67 protects the quarterback in NESCAC action against Wesleyan University last fall. The Division III All-American hopes to play in the National Football League.
Photo credit: Will Costello

Every morning when Thomas Perry wakes up, often as early as 4 a.m., the first thing he sees is a note to himself, written in pencil on a ripped-out page from an 8×11 notebook. It asks: “How will you get better today?”

Then it’s up and at’ em for a full day, getting better.

The big event in the U.S. sports world this week is the annual college draft of the National Football League, held this year in Green Bay, Wisconsin, just outside historic Lambeau Field.

There is a genuine possibility that Thomas, a Middlebury College senior, will be one of the 250 players selected to join the approximately 1,500 players in the NFL — not on the first night, Thursday, when only the first round is completed, but perhaps on Saturday when the last few rounds (of seven) take place.

Thomas is a 6’2”, 315-pound offensive lineman who earned All NESCAC first team honors for three years and was a Division III All-American, among a host of other honors. He earned an invitation to the East-West Shrine (All-Star) Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in January, where he played admirably against top players from major football conferences.

The Shrine game is an audition for those players headed to the NFL, or aspiring to be, largely from those big-time college programs. NFL scouts, coaches, and executives were there in great numbers.

Thomas’s presence in Texas, the only Division III player there, and his performance in the game, brought him considerable media attention. The New York Times (a formidable Addison Independent competitor) ran an extensive article on Thomas on April 9, “The Smartest Toughest NFL Draft Prospect You’ve Likely Never Seen Play.”

(When you finish this column, go straight to the Times!)

If Thomas’s name is not called on one of the draft nights, there’s a likelihood that he will nonetheless find himself in an NFL training camp this summer, as each year about 100 undrafted players are signed as priority free agents.

Thomas Perry is anything but one-dimensional. He is also a brilliant student, with a Molecular Biology and Biochemistry major and Math minor. He has followed a premedical track and will head to medical school and become a doctor when he is finished with football. He has a 3.92 GPA.

Thomas’s path to Middlebury was complicated by the pandemic. He comes from the small Connecticut town of Haddam and attended the public high school there, Haddam-Kilingworth. College visits were compromised by COVID protocols and his entire senior football season was wiped out, so he was not widely exposed to college recruiters, Middlebury’s good fortune.

He was recruited by Doug Mandigo, now Middlebury’s head football coach, then the defensive coordinator, as Connecticut was his area of recruitment. “We never saw him play but we liked his junior film. He was a good student — and that matters! His high school raved about him, and we liked that he was a wrestler too. He was good candidate for us.”

Over the course of his years at Middlebury, according to Coach Mandigo, Thomas “has developed into an incredible athlete. He has a work ethic and focus like I’ve never seen before. It’s ridiculous! In January, on Saturday mornings, I’d come to the rink with my son, and Thomas would be doing agility drills in the field house.

“His strength numbers would be the best in any NFL locker room. He will be an NFL player.

“I’m betting on him.”

AT AN APRIL 15 press conference Thomas Perry answers questions about his professional football aspirations and his experience as a student at Middlebury College.

Thomas comes from a football family: his dad was an All-Ivy League player and his Uncle Bill was an All-American defensive lineman and is in the Brown University Hall of Fame (Thomas wore number #67 at Middlebury to honor Bill, who died of cancer in 2017). He has three cousins who also played football at Brown and another cousin who played professionally with the Seattle Seahawks.

When asked about his heroes and role models, Thomas quickly mentioned his mother, who was a lacrosse player as a student at Union College. “I look up a lot to my mom. She’s an attorney (like his dad), and a math teacher, and she’s also a writer — she’s written a murder mystery and is working on a sequel.”

Thomas is the oldest of four boys, all athletes, no football players among his brothers. Tyler, 20, is a rower at Union; Michael, a soccer player, is a senior in high school (interested in Middlebury); and Ryan, an 8th grader, enjoys lacrosse and basketball.

“We all get along well,” he says, “except they don’t like it when I steal their food.”

Thomas brings a similar intensity to his studies that he does to football. Having finished all his undergraduate premedical studies, he is taking Senior Independent Study this last semester in the lab of biology professor Erik Solhaug.

“Thomas is a perfect and unique mixture of youthful curiosity, enthusiasm, honesty and hard work,” Prof. Solhaug says. “Every day he comes into lab with a smile on his face, and I can tell he is genuinely excited to do science in my lab.

“In the classroom, he is always very engaged, sitting at the front of the class, and demonstrating a deep understanding of the material. He’s not afraid to ask questions or be wrong, a crucial skill for a scientist. In all, he is a joy to work with!”

Thomas’s premedical advisor at Middlebury, Hannah Benz, M.D., wrote in an email that she considers Thomas “not simply an excellent student, but also a human being capable of great empathy.

“His unflappable and steady temperament, ability to navigate nuance, and his compassionate character combined with stellar academic abilities will make him an outstanding physician.”

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE prospect Thomas Perry is a Molecular Biology and Biochemistry major and Math minor at Middlebury College whose GPA over his four years of study is 3.92.

Middlebury was the first school that made a commitment to Thomas. In an April 15 press conference, Thomas described driving over the mountain on Route 125 on his first visit to Middlebury: “I said, ‘Holy Cow,’ I can’t imagine going to a school only 20 minutes from a spot like this!” He committed to Middlebury the next day.

The landscape, the natural world, is Thomas’s release. “I just love being outside in Vermont,” he says. “I’ll walk on the TAM, or if it’s not muddy, I’ll go biking.” He has done 20 mile-plus hikes and 100-mile bike rides. During COVID, he started playing disc golf and still plays as often as twice a week. “They just built a disc golf course next to the golf course. I get my teammates to come with me.”

He also has enjoyed his relationship to the town and the townspeople he has met, “from other disc golfers, to the staff and students at Mary Hogan School (where he is involved with a football team mentoring program), to the gamers at Tinker and Smithy (where he plays games on Thursday nights) — there is something special here in Middlebury.”

About his future, he says, “I have no idea what will happen. I don’t think too far from the present. I can’t control what I can’t control.

“I can just get up every day and try to get better.”

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Karl Lindholm, Ph.D., taught in the American Studies Program and served in Student Affairs at Middlebury College for 34 years. He can be reached at [email protected].